Number of comments in a post
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I know the number of comments in a post should have some affect on how long it takes to make a new comment, but I am surprised by just how much.
Some of my readers have been complaining how long it takes to comment on some posts. I find that it takes a minute or longer to make a comment on a post with 400 comments. This surely is far too long?
I decided to try this on another blog, so I went over to the “Surprise Me” post http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/surprise-me/ as I knew this had 400+ comments. Yup – it too over a minute to post a comment.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Try this one:
Just the time to get the page to load probably costs me 50% of my readers. I think, though I have not tested it, that if you use paginated comments and break it down say, 50 comments per page, that things will be MUCH faster. I expect that this option was put in by staff to reduce the loads on their servers, which of course is why things would speed up.
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I see what you mean raincoster!
I tried pagination and it made no difference. Admittedly I wasn’t trying it on a post with 1807 comments.I daren’t try writing a comment on your post because goodness only knows how long that would take. Probably 3 minutes or more?
Why should it take so long? Forums seem to be able to cope with large numbers of comments. I can’t imagine a blog is all that different.
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Pagination made no difference? That really surprises me.
Yes, it takes easily 3 minutes to load the page and the sidebar is the last thing to load. Once you write a comment and hit Post though, it works smoothly, although I recommend you read Facebook or Fark in a different tab while you’re waiting.
Forums display a limited number of posts on one page; that’s why I thought pagination would work. I think staff would benefit from your feedback. If they want to host popular sites, they need to work easily and quickly!
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The example I gave (that Surprise Me thing) has 400+ comments AND has Pagination – albeit 100 comments per page. My guess would be that its more to do with the way the comments are stored and the amount of paging involved in following linked lists etc.
Anyway, I have contacted support – but I won’t hold my breath. This sounds like a fundamental design problem to me and is unlikely ever to get resolved.
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OK – coffee break over….
One thing I’ve just discovered
If I have 2 tabs open showing the same post and submit a comment (which I know won’t complete for a long time) and then refresh the window immediately in the other tab…… the new comment appears in next to no time..
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Yes, I’ve seen that a lot. Don’t know why it happens. Sometimes when you hit Publish or Update and the thing seems to hang, you can open your blog in a new tab and confirm the post has gone through. It’s very odd, but endemic to WP.
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Yes – I’ve seen the same. Could it be the difference between writing and reading?
Anyway, I had a reply from support. They said, and I quote:
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The number of comments in a post should not have a measurable effect on the time it takes to submit a new comment.Do you notice this all the time with large numbers of comments, or is it variable?
—————————————————————————————————————————Can WordPress REALLY not be aware of this problem?
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Thanks for that raincoaster. I have a suspicion that trashing comments doesn’t help either (I can quite understand why) and that to speed things up they have to be deleted.
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They just dont get it….
From Wodrpress…..
Because it’s an AJAX call, you’re more likely waiting for either your computer to download everything, or for your browser to properly render the comment. As you said, when you make the comment, it’s actually being entered immediately.
I’ve passed the concern on to our systems guys for their attention.
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Hello raincoaster.
Just checked your post again. How strange.
Today it only took about 15 seconds to download and display – nothing like your 3 minutes.
I tried posting a comment. The browser status line display “waiting for raincoaster.com” for about 10 seconds, then “transferring data” for about 3 seconds, then the page was fully displayed.
This is reasonable. However it is the exception. My site is still slow on posts with 80+ comments. The status line seems to get stuck “waiting for …” After it eventually moves to “transferring data” everything works as you would expect.
Not having much luck with support ….
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Yes, I noticed that it had sped up drastically since this thread started. I do not know why that would be, particularly since yours hasn’t sped up. Ping staff again, I guess?
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Yes raincoaster – I have pinged several times!
I find that it can work as expected (hoped) but then suddenly slow down to snails pace. However, since I last commented here, I have discovered 2 things.
1. If I restart my browser (and clear cache, cookies, download history) then it often works OK for a while. No idea whether there is anything in this or just coincidence.
2. However, I have a work-around…..
Post a comment.
Hit ESC (or click on STOP button)
Hit F5 (or click on refresh button)Voila!!!! There is the comment. It now takes me 2 or 3 seconds to make a comment instead of 80!
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Yes raincoaster – I have pinged several times!
I find that it can work as expected (hoped) but then suddenly slow down to snails pace. However, since I last commented here, I have discovered 2 things.
1. If I restart my browser (and clear cache, cookies, download history) then it often works OK for a while. No idea whether there is anything in this or just coincidence.
2. However, I have a work-around…..
o Post a comment.
o Hit ESC (or click on STOP button)
o Hit F5 (or click on refresh button)Voila!!!! There is the comment. It now takes me 2 or 3 seconds to make a comment instead of 80!
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