Readers may have noticed in recent days/weeks that the blog seems to be loading up quite slowly. Furthermore, we have been getting quite a lot of database connection errors and the like – which are just plain annoying (especially if you’re in the middle of typing up a post). Part of the problem is probably arising because we are getting more and more visitors (which is a good thing). For most of last year this blog averaged around 10,000-15,000 views a week (as recorded by the WordPress Site Statistics tool), while this year that has increased to around 20,000 views a week – with two weeks exceeding 20,000 recently.
While it’s great that the site is getting more and more widely read, we think that it’s time to take things to “the next level” a bit. This involves a few things:
- Shifting the blog onto a better webhost. Bluehost, based in the USA, is just too unreliable for us. We are looking into a New Zealand based hosting company.
- The above process is likely to increase the costs of running the blog, so we are looking at finding a way of easily accepting donations to these running costs (we prefer this option to having advertising).
- Possible changes to the blog’s layout – which (according to Josh our former admin) hasn’t changed much since mid 2009.
- Developing a series of permanent pages, linked from the main blog, on major transport projects around Auckland – a kind of ‘one stop shop’ for information on those projects, but with links to particular posts for further detail.
As readers of this blog, you are what makes this place work so well. So we are very interested in any ideas you might have for making this place even better – particularly in relation to the above.
Processing...
Clean layout & design
Easy to access previous posts
Category access or blog tag search
Apart from that keep up the most excellent work.
Agree with RC. Clean layout and design please. You should make the blog look much more like AKT. It was a sad day when that blog shut down as it had a modern, professional air to it and was really easy to navigate around. You definitely need to raise your game from a information presentation point of view.
Also, get rid of that Shinkansen motif at the top right of each page loaded. A) its a model that is no longer in service (it was retired aeons ago), B) its not even relevant to NZ and C) it makes the whole site look dowdy and cheap.
No, the last thing we want to do is follow the late unlamented AKT, which ended its days trolling fat people and looking for things to moan about. I don’t want to see this blog end up hostage to a constituency which doesn’t actually want to improve PT, but just wants to vent their negative feelings.
Jon C did a great job and was not trolling, you completely misread that post and to this day seem to still believe it was against fat people when it wasn’t but don’t let reality get in the way of your own negative ranting.
If you think the debate is negative then please add something constructive rather than just complaining about it.
You still around?
And bit rich calling Jon C a troll is it not?
Any case, as Matt said or as I could put it more crudely – put up or shut up.
My thoughts on the blog will be down below
Not sure how much any of you who’re making the decisions knows about this stuff, so I may be telling you how to suck eggs, but a hosting provider with a link to the Auckland Peering Exchange should see a lot of your key “constituency” get a huge speed increase. The nature of this site would lend itself towards a virtual private server or possibly even a real server rather than a shared host, particularly as your usage stats are only likely to increase. Make sure that whatever solution you go with can have its performance increased easily if you start hitting capacity issues.
Also, a provider that differentiates between NZ traffic and international traffic for the purposes of billing/metering could mean a significant cost difference given the heavily NZ-centric audience of the site.
Plus, what RC said, and double on the last line.
Any recommendations?
I don’t, but I’ve reached out to the local network operators community to see if anyone’s got suggestions. They may come to you guys directly.
You could look at Openhost. They’re based in Albany on Auckland’s North Shore with servers located in New Zealand and free 0800 and email support. Disclaimer – I work for Web Drive (parent company of Openhost).
I’ve emailed all of the admins, and heard nothing. I’m happy to just pass through all of the contacts if that what you want, but someone please answer!
How about a statistics page with stuff you guys have picked up on? I realise that most of it is freely available from AK, AKT websites etc. but it be cool to have it in one spot.
Also, I cited you guys in my thesis; how about an official reference?
Bibtex is the most transferable format:
@Manual{,
title = {Auckland Transport Blog},
author = {{Auckland Transport Team}},
organization = {Auckland Foundation for Transportation Excellence},
address = {Auckland, New Zealand},
year = {2012},
note = {Get an ISBN},
url = {http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/},
}
Also, more posts from Stuart Donovan would be good. And I want a guest post from OBI-nator.
PS Citation adapted from R citation. Cheers R for everything.
Phil, I already give you personal transport blog posts in the comfort of our own flat, what more could you want?
This blog is rife with non-disclosure of affiliations lately 😉
I wonder if Snapper would be willing to sponsor this site. 😛
Lots of web hosts in NZ just google for them. You will pay more for a NZ host unless you can get “mates rates” through someone.
Possibly you can get more out of your current host too by optimizing wordpress. http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Optimization
Wordpress doesn’t really scale well – every page request is a database lookup – so to get more performance you need to be able to serve pages without the database lookup. http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Optimization/Caching is the answer. Wikipedia solves the same problem by using a “reverse squid” cache to take the load off the db/php by caching pages at the server side. UserRequest->ServerCache->HTTPServer. Even dynamic pages with comments can cope with being 1 min old or so.
Does the layout need a change? It’s easy to follow and very readable.
I thought AKT got “weird” layout-wise at the end, became hard to follow…
And yes- many failed connections and super slowwww loading. I thought it was just Vodafone!
I agree Geoff, I like the layout of the blog as it is – it’s clear, straightforward and focuses on what’s imporrtant which is the text.
AKT started using some extremely ugly WordPress themes that were sourced from somewhere, and I don’t agree that we should use that blog as a model.
My major improvement would be a better index of all posts, sometimes I’ve spent quite a while going back through to find what I wanted.
I like the idea of a tracking the major transport projects around Auckland if any of your bloggers have time to do that including photo’s. I used to follow AKT for his great coverage. I read this from America and never have problems with speed etc so now I know why 🙂
Ok my 2 cents (and declaring a conflict of interest – yes I own my own blog). Four things – Two major, two rather minor and cosmetic:
1) If change of host and bringing it to NZ is required so we don’t get these Database Error worries then – I’d say go for it. As for donations or sponsorship; (Lol asking Snapper) – could work and be able to find some sponsors or donations (Paypal?) (heck might even chip in)
2) Colour or skins: could rotate the colours (not the themes) say every 3-6 months – sometimes a fresh coat of paint is all that is needed to keep the site “fresh” and help draw in visitors (not the regulars – they keep coming back). And please do change that motif in the top right corner to say the Sky Tower and an ADL class DMU or a shot of the Southern Motorway at Ellersile during Rush Hour with all the cars backed up and a train sailing by 😛
3) quoting: [Developing a series of permanent pages, linked from the main blog, on major transport projects around Auckland – a kind of ‘one stop shop’ for information on those projects, but with links to particular posts for further detail.] <<< That I would support (I did say I have a conflict of interest earlier 😛 ) as I use that for the main topics I cover (Auckland Waterfront/Port of Auckland), Values and Polices, International Scope, etc.. Feedback I did get from using those permanent pages as Link Indexes, as it helped those wanting to look up a specific post or piece of information quickly (so long as I had indexed and categorised the post properly). An idea there 🙂
4) Can we please edit our comments after posting. Couple of times I have been caught out after coming back to a comment and wanting to edit it usually for syntax or gramma (no point deleting unless it was something beyond dumb as it can get brought back up rather easy). Yes I should be more careful in the comment division but mistake happen and I would like to correct them 😛
Just my 2 cents
Blog is good however 🙂
Josh turned off editing ages ago because it was causing problems. I agree that it’s something that needs to be brought back, especially as there’s no preview function for those of us who like to use HTML to check whether what we’ve put in actually works. A new platform should make that possible again, and I would definitely call it a must-have feature.
I like the blog too but my main thing is that when I am searching for previous posts I find it really hard to get back a specific one. I don’t know if there is any way you can organize it so that it is possible to search more tightly for particular topics (e.g., BCR of motorways)? Anyway you can look back and see what is being seen most often and perhaps put those topics (or facts) onto a particular static page?
I think this blog is generally successful, so support only evolutionary tweaks at this stage.
Some thoughts:
1. Change the masthead, a local transport scene or image insterad of the bullet train.
2. Keep the search box and Recent Comments at the top left sidebar – they are useful there.
3. Move Recent Posts up in the order of the sidebar above Links.
4. Add a sidebar to the righthand side – this can have something like the following:
a) category list of various projects & issues being discussed often with sticky links to key posts
b) tag cloud
5. Editing of posts would be useful, maybe with a 15min timelimit?
I’m a web developer so I figured I might as well chip in… Sitehost is a great NZ host. I’d recommend one of their VPS boxes for the sort of traffic you mention. I think NZ traffic is free rated with them, but don’t quote me. I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but have used them quite a bit and always been impressed. Because the server is virtual it can be ramped up and down quickly to cater for spikes. It’s not quite as flexible as rackspace cloud stuff but it’s onshore and that’s a big factor I think.
WordPress can scale if a caching layer is put on top. No need for a reverse proxy or too much complexity just add a caching plugin. And if you’ve gone for a VPS you’ll be free to add memcache in if you still need speed increases. (It’s what facebook uses but probably unnecessary at 20,000 pageviews a week).
Finally, content is king. This blog thrives on good quality posts and design currently doesn’t detract from that…So while it can look better be careful not to lose sight of why it’s got 15,000 pageviews a week – it’s because people like what is being written not what it looks like.
If I can help out in any way I’d be happy to be involved.
My view is that you guys face an interesting choice on the content of the blog as well as the format. I find this blog very informative for my work and I think there is a great deal of useful information and persuasive analysis on transport projects. I would therefore support your idea of permanent pages with key information on major projects.
However, I think that to maximise the chance of helping make the changes you are promoting to transport investment in Auckland, the best opportunity is to reach political consensus (i.e. the arguments become so persuasive that it just makes common sense). Recent posts (including today) make the blog look increasingly like an off-shoot of green party policy, with some fairly scathing criticisms of the Government and its ministers. While I am not saying that such criticism is unwarranted, I wonder whether tactically it makes best use of the resource you are providing, and how this reconciles with the idea of providing an (objective) information source?
I’m not sure if it is the role of this blog to be purely objective, it is a blog after all. There’s no need to be kind on National to promote a facade of objectivity, we’re all agreed that their transport policy is crap and I’m certainly not afraid to say it. How are we supposed to reach political consensus when the ruling party only wants to fund road infrastructure because of their ideology.. cost, value or impacts be damned?
The more important thing in my opinion is to hammer home how wasteful and economically disastrous their transport ideology is, how much they ignore their own studies and evaluations when it doesn’t suit the party line.
While Ms Genter has been getting a lot of attention lately that’s not because we’re necessarily pro-Green, it’s because they’re the only ones making a decent job of asking the right questions in the house.
This is classic concern trolling. It’s a blog where the opinions of the bloggers are welcome. We readers are also welcome to disagree with or ignore the more stupid opinion voiced.
But anyway what is it about people who like the National Party that they can’t handle any criticism of that Party whatsoever no matter how well supported by facts and rationally argued? Surely if they like the Party they have their reasons and can articulate them in a discussion, or is it just blind faith and there must never be any criticism no matter how deserved, where are we; North Korea?? This is the right place for these discussions and the gov of the day whatever the stripe is always going to get the most scrutiny because they’re the ones making decisions.
I’d agree that posts that comment on politics could be less inflammatory in tone (reader’s comments, of course, have more leeway). If nothing else, presenting a careful argument looks better to those who might not otherwise be convinced.
Some good technical comments above. My 2 cents would be that hosting in the US will give you a good range of cheap hosting options while hosting in NZ will give you much less choice and probably cost more. I’ve not really noticed a speed issue downloading material on the site.
A couple of other things:
* The site is currently missing a favicon, adding one would be great.
* Pages explaining the background of important topics would be good. I recently was tryign to explain to somebody on twitter how Britomart was approaching the limit. It would have been great to point to a page on this site that had a background on this topic.
* Some NZ blog stats are published here , you might want to get onto this list as this would probably be in the Top 20.
I want whatever you’re using, because I’m on the end of the phattest internet connection in the country and it still takes 20+ seconds to reload a page after I post a comment. How much of that is server and how much of that is link is anyone’s guess.
Agree to an extent about costs increasing if they bring the hosting home, but my NZNOG post has garnered me quite a few responses from interested parties even with the quite specific requirements I listed. A local VPS gives all the flexibility of any of the US services along with a local contact to slap if things go wrong and a massive speed increase to the vast majority of the site’s users.
We are looking for something less than $100 a month to put a bit of perspective on the hosting discussions.
Keep the site as it is.
In terms of improvements, I like user “Patrick Reynolds” posts so more of them please. Also maybe guest posts by politicians (from both sides) and other industry experts would be interesting IMO.
Anyone got a link to a wordpress plugin that allows editing of comments?
I think for the most part the post format is very easy to read and access. Guest posts from politicians, councillors, academics or professionals would be awesome if possible.
Also this is a good opportunity to say thanks to those who contribute to this blog, it is a pleasure reading the info and opinions put on from everyone.
Love! the idea of getting pollies to provide guest posts (and answer the hard questions).
Can we start by inviting Brownlee, whoever Labour’s is, ditto NZ First, Julie-Anne Genter, and maybe Nikki Kaye, Jacinda Ardern, Mark Ford, Mike Lee and Len Brown to contribute.
Great idea!
Hi,
nice quick wins on the Favicon and update of logo for the site. Is the CRL link at the top new as well? I usually head straight for the latest posts and don´t notice the top banner too much.
Not sure if CRL advocacy should be carried out by the site up front but have you thought about buying up a domain such as cityraillink.org.nz or similarly catchy to drive traffic to the CRL pages info?
Keep up the good work
Pete
Yes the CRL link at the top is new. First of a series of permanent pages on major projects. In the future the plan is for there to be a lot more detail on the CRL within sub-pages of that link.
I know that this thread went up a couple of weeks ago, but I find the CAPTCHA code cranky and obstructive, often I put in excatly what it shows and it will say it’s incorrect, this is the only forum I post on that uses it and I find it a pain
any responses?
Excatly?
um, exactly
more haste, less speed mode, I’m more careful with the CAPTCHA code 😉
This is a very informative topic about transportation process. I like it very much.I am really inspired from your blog hoping you will be there with a more interesting post like this.