We are expecting a significant amount of traffic through election day and beyond. Elad has installed an additional front-end server but we still expect to have to disable certain forum functions once the load on our servers becomes too great. During these times it is absolutely necessary to remove these functions otherwise the servers will crash and the site will be unavailable to everyone.

In order to keep DU running during periods of extremely high traffic we have a system of levels in place. As traffic to the site increases, certain functions are removed at each level. When this happens a notification will appear on the Latest page indicating what level we're on. The effects of these levels are described below.

LEVEL 1
Advanced Search is unavailable
Latest page Milestones are not displayed
The red text that indicates a post has been edited is not displayed
Cool section is removed from the homepage

LEVEL 2
The right column is removed from the Latest page
Latest page customization options are unavailable

LEVEL 3
Some navigational images are not displayed
Posts counts are not displayed
Signature lines are not displayed
Stars are not displayed
Avatars are not displayed
The homepage is replaced with a static HTML file

LEVEL 4
The discussion forum is available to registered members only

LEVEL 5
The discussion forum is available to Star Members only


A word of warning: there is a strong possibility that -- at least for certain periods of time -- we will have to operate at Level 5 on election night. To prepare for this possibility you can purchase a Star Membership here if you have not done so already.

Please understand that under extreme circumstances these measures do become necessary in order to keep the site running for as long as possible, for as many people as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

EarlG, Skinner, Elad
DU Administrators