Dear Readers: Where has the Vanguard been? That is a good news / bad news question. The simple answer is that we have been experiencing server problems. In just three months time since The Vanguard website migrated to the new platform, the daily traffic volume has tripled, and we simply outgrew the shared server, which had been sized for “incremental growth” Just not a triple-sized increment. Ron Garcia, our web master, tweaked the system as we grew, but over the weekend the “tweaks” were overwhelmed by a combined tsunami of readers and commenters. Therefore, for the past 48 hours the Vanguard’s server/site manger has taken the steps to move the Vanguard website to our own dedicated server. We expected that this move would have taken place yesterday, but there were some unexpected technical problems.
As noted, since December our readership has tripled in size, but the absolute volume of readers isn’t what puts the biggest load on the website. That load comes from the fact of the interactive comments portion of the site. Vanguard readers don’t always agree, but they all know that if they want to express their opinions, they can … and those opinions will invariably garner responses from other Vanguard readers … your neighbors here in Davis.
No matter why you come to the Vanguard each day … for news, for entertainment, for interaction, for education on the issues, for a chance to sharpen your debating skills … we believe the Vanguard is delivering what you are looking for. The fact that readership has tripled in three months proves that. So just like Mishka’s and Peets and Cloud Forest and Common Grounds and Starbucks do, we believe the time has come to ask each reader to make a regular contribution for the unique value delivers for you. Rather than “by the cup” we are following the NPR/PBS model and asking our readers to commit to a $10 a month ongoing contribution to help us with these additional costs to run a growing site and organization.
