Category: Strictly Spoiler

Wasn’t expecting to do one of these but I need to talk about the site outages that have been happening around the time the spoiler is posted to varying degrees the last few weeks.

A lot of you have been seeing database errors during the hours of 10pm-11pm on the night the spoiler is posted. You aren’t the only ones, I’ve had them too which has meant it has taken me several attempts to actually post the spoiler during those weeks.

For those of you who don’t know, much of the site’s dynamic content such as the posts, comments and polls is stored in a database which this site connects to and queries in order to generate the pages you see. Many other websites on the internet, especially those with dynamic changing content such as blogs like this work in exactly the same way. If the site can’t connect to the server hosting the database, it can’t display the content which is why the errors come up.

Those of you who were around last year will know how much I don’t like having site outages. It lets you guys down, isn’t professional and of course if it happens repeatedly you may go somewhere else for your spoiler. It also meant the social features of this site like the polls and comments were not working so the discussions weren’t happening as much whilst the site wasn’t working. I’ve taken pride in how much discussion is taking place on this site now about the shows, the spoiler and the results including during the final weekend when a lot of you came to the site to discuss the final even though there wasn’t a spoiler. The discussion and poll features however add to the amount of times the database gets queried on each page view which will not have helped these issues.

The reason these outages have occurred are more or less similar to the last outages that caused me to move to my current host, just on a larger scale and are simply down to the volume of traffic especially when a lot of you are refreshing the site to see if the spoiler has come in. The first time outages occurred last year my host at the time was struggling to cope with 10,000 visits over a Strictly weekend. Which is frankly not a lot of hits and they really should have been able to cope. My new/current host is starting to fall down now but the number of hits is getting much higher. During the semi final  weekend there was over 323,000 views (including views at dave-thorp.me.uk where I temporarily mirrored the spoiler due to the issues but not including any views where you got a database error). My current host coped fine at all times apart from the peak time between 10pm and 11pm when a lot of you are refreshing the site to try and see if I’ve posted the spoiler. The lateness of that week’s spoiler probably also compounded the issues as more people were checking and refreshing the longer it took for the spoiler to come in.

I’ve been discussing the issues with my current host these last few weeks and their solution would be to move the site to a dedicated server with its own resources rather than the current shared servers on which resources are shared with websites other than mine. Whilst I accept that the site may need this level of resources at the peak time when the spoiler is posted and a lot of you are refreshing the site I don’t agree that it needs it the rest of the time when the current solution is coping just fine. The following graphs are taken from my logs both on the site’s back end and through google analytics.

This graph shows the views on a day by day basis. It doesn’t take too much to realise that the peaks are the days of a Strictly weekend. Mondays to Fridays are significantly quieter as you can see. You can also see how much traffic has increased week on week (excluding Blackpool which is always an anomaly as the spoiler is usually about 90 minutes later)

This graph from google analytics shows the page views over the whole of the semi final weekend each hour. As you can see it starts to peak whilst strictly is on, building up after the live show has finished with a massive peak between 10pm and 11pm when you are all trying to view the spoiler. It tapers off overnight with a slight peak in the morning when people wake up, steady traffic throughout the day (although the graph doesn’t reflect this properly due to the size of the main peak) and another slight peak during the not live results show (not sure why I get this – maybe people are checking if I was right or possibly someone’s favourite has been in the dance off and they’ve wanted to check they survive it).

As I mentioned before my current host has suggested (and I am inclined to agree) that in order to cope with this peak for one hour a week the site needs the resources of its own dedicated server. This costs £249+VAT a month with my current host (although in researching I have found cheaper alternatives). This is an awful lot of money especially for something that I only really need at the moment for 1 hour a week for 3 months of a year. I currently pay £7.19 a month to host this (and all my other) site(s) so there is a significant difference in costs.

So what am I going to do? Well in researching my options I think I have come up with a solution that will give me the best of both worlds. I’ve found flexible servers which will allow me to adjust the resources available to them on the fly and pay per minute for the resources I use. So I can have the resources set pretty low during the quieter periods but increase them as needed during the traffic spikes so I get the power I need when I need it but only pay for it for the few hours a week I actually need it. Operating this way would mean I could run a server every bit as powerful (if not more powerful) than the server my current host is proposing but only pay for it when I need that power. This would bring my hosting costs to something more in the region of £40-£50 a month whilst Strictly is on and a broadly similar level to what they are now when Strictly isn’t on which is obviously a lot more manageable than the £250 a month currently being proposed. £250 a month would be a huge struggle for me even with the ad revenue I currently receive and even if I only used a dedicated server during the Strictly months. There would also be £100 setup fees with my existing host that I would have to pay each year (unless I kept the server all year round which would be completely unaffordable) adding further to the costs.

I’d like to also add that I’m not criticising my current host in the slightest. I was very critical of my previous host and their inability to cope with what at the time were very minor traffic spikes of a few thousand views. My current host has coped fantastically with spikes of tens of thousands and occasionally a hundred thousand. It’s only now that we start getting into several hundred thousand views during a spike that they’ve started to struggle and that’s not really their fault. I am getting an awful lot of traffic now to this site and it’s just clearly outgrown cheaper shared hosting solutions. I will likely keep my other sites hosted with them as it provides me a separate backup site just in case issues hit like I’ve made use of this year and it also means that I can dedicate the resources of the new server to this site which is the one that needs those resources. I can still recommend my current host which is Vidahost for anyone with moderately high traffic sites looking to keep their hosting costs low. Sadly this site, at least during the main period where traffic spikes, has outgrown them.

Either way there won’t be any move in hosting until at least August/September next year. Traffic to this site will drop significantly now the series is over and won’t start to peak again until the 2016 series of Strictly so there is little need to switch hosting until nearer the start of the next series. Not to mention there’s also the chance that the BBC might do something radical like a live results show, especially now I have their attention, and there would be no point in moving hosting if the main thing that draws people to this site suddenly becomes redundant although as final weekend showed, quite a few of you will still come to the site even without a spoiler as there were almost 40,000 views over the course of the final weekend and significant discussion taking place during and after the final which is testament to the community that I’ve built!

In the meantime thank you for all your support especially when the site has had difficulties. The site continues to grow at a rate that is both surprising and occasionally alarming to me and the site’s unusual traffic pattern makes it difficult to find a solution to the site’s growing needs that wouldn’t be a waste of money during the quieter periods. However I think I have found the ideal solution and hopefully next year the site will be able to cope with pretty much anything you guys throw at it!

So unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere for the last month you should have known that the BBC in their infinite wisdom had my Facebook page removed last month for apparently breaching their trademarks in relation to Strictly Come Dancing. The page was reinstated last week after I very lengthily pointed out that the page was not in breach of the Trademarks Act 1994 and the BBC relented although they did threaten me with the possibility of revisiting the issue if I continued to post information that was already in the public domain prior to them showing the results show. I’ve already gone into my response to that request/threat in quite some depth.

Shortly after the Facebook page was removed I sent the BBC a Freedom Of Information request asking how many complaints they had made to Facebook to request the removal of content due to alleged infringements of their Strictly Come Dancing Trademarks from 2006 until the present date and of those requests how many resulted in the removal of content. The BBC today responded to this FOI request. Here is their response:

Dear Mr Thorp 

Freedom of Information Request – RFI20151969 

Thank you for your request to the BBC of 18 November 2015, seeking the following information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”): 

“The number of requests the BBC have made to have content removed from Facebook for alleged infringement of any of the trademarks the BBC holds in relation to “Strictly Come Dancing” and of those requests how many resulted in the removal of content. I require this information for each year from 2006 to 2015 inclusive with the 2015 data covering the year to date and the data for the other years covering the year as a whole.” 

It may be helpful to explain in general terms how the BBC deals with alleged infringements of trade mark rights in relation to material posted on Facebook. Reports of such infringements may come from BBC staff, partners of the BBC or from members of the public. In all cases they are dealt with by the Intellectual Property team in the BBC Legal Division. 

The team considers each report, and where action is warranted, completes a Trademark Report Form provided by Facebook on its platform to request that the content is taken down. Facebook then responds by email confirming that it has received the request. Normally in the same email, Facebook will set out its initial position on the complaint. If it does not accept the complaint, Facebook invites the complainant to clarify its position and explain why it believes its rights have been infringed. Similarly, if Facebook requires further information or evidence before it can reach a final decision, it invites the complainant to submit that further information or evidence. At this point, the Intellectual Property team will normally submit further information or evidence to Facebook and further explain how the trade mark rights in question have been infringed and why the content complained of should be taken down. If Facebook accepts these further submissions, the content is subsequently taken down. 

In relation to your request under the Act, we confirm that, during the years 2006 to 2015 inclusive, the BBC has made one request to Facebook for the removal of content on the basis of an infringement of the BBC’s trade marks relating to Strictly Come Dancing. This request was made in November 2015 and was directed at “The Strictly Spoiler” Facebook page. The request resulted in the removal of the page. 

By way of background information, the limited application of the Act to public service broadcasters was originally intended to protect freedom of expression and the rights of the media under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The BBC, as a media organisation, is under a duty to impart information and ideas on all matters of public interest and the importance of this function has been recognised by the European Court of Human Rights. Maintaining its editorial independence is a crucial factor in enabling the BBC to fulfil this function. 

That said, the BBC makes a huge range of information available about programmes which it broadcasts and related content on the website hosted at www.bbc.co.uk. It also proactively publishes information covered by the Act on its publication scheme and regularly handles requests for information under the Act. 

Appeal Rights 

If you are not satisfied that we have complied with the Act in responding to your request, you have the right to an internal review by a BBC senior manager or legal adviser. Please contact us at the address above, explaining what you would like us to review and including your reference number. If you are not satisfied with the internal review, you can appeal to the Information Commissioner. The contact details are: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow SK9 5AF. Telephone 01625 545 700 or see http://www.ico.gov.uk/ 

Yours sincerely, 

BBC Information Rights

So just my page then. In 10 years! Think that tells us everything we need to know, not that we didn’t already know that this was nothing to do with Trademark but about the content of the page in question!