%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |   Members help other members with technical questions and problems using Writing.Com! |
The site advises everyone to store a copy on their own computer, of what they submit to the site so that should there be a problem on the save (which can happen to anyone because it's the internet), they won't lose their work. The site doesn't have the money to provide unlimited free service to everyone that wants it either. Since the interactive stories part of the site earns nothing from ads and has been operating at a significant loss for years, the site has limited the amount of server time allotted for free members and guest users, to a certain amount. This resource limitation is not in effect for those who pay for the costs of their own usage of the site by purchasing a membership. You can read more about this in more detail here [Interactive Story from Writing.Com 101  ]:Limited Resources for Guests and Free Members The Interactive Story area of the site is run ad-free with a limited paywall. This began January 2018. Interactive Story items are a small subset of the actual writing here on Writing.Com, but they generate the highest (by far) use of resources, and our 18 years of trying many ways to earn enough revenue from them to pay for their availability to guests and members with free accounts were unsuccessful. We have been pleased with the results of both the resource cost savings and the participation increase due to members moving to low-cost paid accounts. We do not plan to change how this area of the site is run, and as it stands, we have no plans to increase the spending on our free member resources. We understand and accept that not everyone is going to like it. We have to make decisions that we feel are best for the long term, for the community and site as a whole. We've spent 18 years making decisions for sustainability, and demonstrating those in practice. It should also be noted there are few, if any, sites that allow the type of uncensored, unfiltered content that we do; we're extremely proud of our independence and ability to offer a free-speech venue. Limited resources are allocated for guests and members with free accounts to view and participate in Interactive Stories, including members with free accounts that contain grandfathered Interactive Story items. This limitation does not affect any members with any level of paid membership. These limited resources are available when the load on the servers is sufficiently low. As of April 28, 2018, the logging and statistics showed that these limited resources are available about 70% of the day, and not available for about 30% of the day. According to our server logs, some 11,000 people a day are logging in and using Interactive Story items for free despite the limited server available. At present, we're serving over 600,000 free Interactive Story pages per day, which is a lot of free resources. There are no resource limitations on guests and members with free accounts in using the other areas of the site. Since not as many guests and members with free accounts can view Interactive Story pages at the same time as want to, the options for dealing with the limited resources are:  Put up with the restrictions and keep trying. When the resources are available, getting a page is sort of like a lottery where your odds of winning depend on how many people are asking for a free interactive page in the same time frame -- only so many are available at once. There is no hard limit on how many pages you can view, or any restrictions on which pages you can view. Besides the current-online counts in the left navigation menu, you can check the page at Writing.Com Tools/Who's Online, which has a breakdown at the bottom, to see how much competition there may be for the free pages at any particular time. Besides the number of users, the server load is also affected by site maintenance activity, which usually occurs after midnight in the early am hours, site time. Pay for a membership to cover the costs of the resources you're using: a year of Basic costs $19.95, which is less than 6 cents/day. Find some other free site to frequent. If you choose this option, the site wishes you well.Hope that helps.  Northernwrites___ ~~Image #6000 Sharing Restricted~~ ~~Image #603504 Sharing Restricted~~ |
Re: What exactly are the current "resource limitations?" · 04-04-19 11:59pm  Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
