February 18, 2005

The virtual locust effect ... The linked site used to host downloads of Chris Morris related media files. A natural fpp for any of the filter/link sites you might think. Unfortunately the result of them being posted on the Blue was that their bandwidth shot up and the site's owners had to take it down until the swarm passed and replace it without the downloads. This raises a question - should we be aware of the locust affect when we link to a site?

Of course the problem wouldn't have arisen if they'd simply hosted torrent files of the stuff ...

posted by dickdotcom 19 years ago
  • this could also help too.
  • are there enough of us monkeys to affect sites? mefi has, what, 25,000 members now? we're not even 3,000 yet. i wonder if we're big enough to Fark something on our own.
  • This is why all my geocities bookmarks have remained secret.
  • "A self-facilitating media node".
  • Isn't the whole point of Mofi, Mefi, Fark, Linkfilter et al, to share new discoveries with others? You have to know it'll drive traffic to web sites, otherwise why include links at all? In fact half the fun is discussing the results with other monkeys. I say, swarm on! Storm the gates! Breach the firewalls!
  • SideDish: we're only 3,000 but what about the lurkers? We have no idea how many there are.
  • Discover Magazine had an article about that. They called the phenomenon the "slashdot effect." I assume they feel too high class to shout out Fark, so they called out slashdot.
  • *creeped out by mysterious hoardes of unknown lurkers*
  • grouchy Meh! If people are gonna cry like babies over bandwidth charges, they shouldn't be a-posting things people want to see, free on this interweb thing! /grouchy Now, seriously... I fear someday we'll all be judged over all the resources used just so people can have a laugh over some crazy flash animation...
  • Slashdot had a bit of a fix for that but I can't find the link. They were either trying to minimize the effect or provide an alternate source for the link - been too long to remember more details. One blogger I came across was linked to by /. and they had posted the visitors graph: it started at about 15 users, moved up to about 80 and when /. posted the link it skyrocketed to over 30,000 within hours (and kept climbing) just nuts. *lurks* ;)
  • Hell I don't even rate locust. I'm a parasite thank you kindly. I consume the best of what the net offers and provide nothing in return. MWAHAHAHA! If the farmers don't like it, they'll simply spray the crops with passwords and encryption and crazy amounts of security.
  • I was linked to by slashdot. I had 500,000 page views and 80gb of download in 24 hours, and a good 50,000 page views a day for the next month or so. I got mentioned on b3ta and NTK once, too (a different thing), and that generated about 100,000 views in total.
  • I got slashdotted once, many moons ago. I shut the server down after a few hours, and it still cost me something like $600 in bandwidth charges. That was 5 years ago, when bandwidth cost more, but a big rush from /. or Fark can clean out your wallet quite effectively.
  • Isn't the whole point of Mofi, Mefi, Fark, Linkfilter et al, to share new discoveries with others? true, but there's a difference between saying "check out this (100K) webpage" and "go download this 50Mb file before it's gone!"
  • "SideDish: we're only 3,000 but what about the lurkers? We have no idea how many there are." Wrong. There are exactly eleven lurkers.
  • 12 now. I just told my mum about this place. She loves Chuck Norris, you see.
  • I had already counted your mom. I know what she is going to do before she even does it.
  • I am now terrified of bernockle, and feeling faint.
  • Poor Mother. I knew that implant in her brain would someday be used for evil.
  • She needs soup. Now, dammit!
  • That's because you put it there, dng. "Oh, I knew that implant would be used for evil!"; "Oh, somebody used my death ray to wipe out Nebraska! Will I never learn?" ; "Oh, that genetically engineered super-virus I created seems to be replicating itself uncontrollably! I'm kicking myself, I really am!" We've forgiven you before, but really, you're on your last warning.
  • I thought your mom came for the bunny sex.
  • There was once someone who posted a reference to his homepage on the newsgroup alt.usage.english. The newsgroup had a regular poster pool of about 150 individuals. The bloke who posted his link got more than 10,000 hits on his webpage in a 24 hour period. That's lurkers for you.