Growing Pains
At present WSF seems to be undergoing an unprecedented level of growth. Every month I predict what I think the usage levels will be over the following month, this helps me to gauge how the server is performing and consequently whether the site runs or doesn’t!

The last two months I have been way out, and I’m already at least 25% down on what I thought October would turn out – and we are only just finishing the 15th day. The reality of the matter is that instead of our usual month on month growth rates, we are way, way over our predicted levels. Coupled with the fact WSF now runs much more feature rich content and larger photographs this all adds further strain on our server and bandwidth capabilities.

With this in mind it seems we will have to purchase another server to run alongside our present set up. This server will be used primarily to hold the forum board which places the largest strain on the servers. This will result in the magazine/shop being run from our present server and the forum running from our new sparkly one! This should have the effect of a faster loading site with little or no down time (we hope).

As with all server moves and updates this is likely to cause some disruption to how the site runs. Once we have discussed with our server people in Nottingham about which way we should proceed you can anticipate that the server move and any disruption will take place between the 1st and the 7th of November, or between the 14th and 16th of November. January is by far the busiest WSF month with last year’s total page impressions reaching 3.5million for the month. We are working towards having a server set up capable of running the site without any problems during these intense periods of use.

New Look WSF
We still have a couple of minor issues with the new WSF set up, mainly the forum where the “Multi Quote” button still doesn’t work, we are looking into it and hope to have a solution before the end of the week.

Many of you will have noticed the new “Members Blogs” link at the top of the forum banner. This is a section where you can write your own angling columns and stories in a blog format. We are particularly keen for Charter Boats Skippers and Angling guides to use this area of the site to write catch reports for their boats and businesses. Once we have a list of Boats, Skippers and Guides we will create an index and will publicise it throughout the WSF Web Site.

The WSF Shop has also grown in size with our new update. We now stock a variety of rig building components from Gemini, Breakaway and Sakuma. Not only that but we now stock Ultima Lines and Amnesia Lines, possibly the best hook snood line there is. We were also so impressed with the DVice that after talking with FishyRob (WSF Forum Name) we have decided to stock them in our online store. Over the next few weeks we will be adding more tackle from some of the best names in the business...so stay tuned to the shop.

August and September were busy WSF months.

August saw page impressions reach 2.4million with 212,000 unique users. 526 new members joined the WSF Community. A 40% jump from this time last year.

September saw page impressions reach 2.7million with unique users of 251,000. 470 new members joined the WSF Community.

On average August and September saw an average of 1,340 posts per day across the forum board community.

A big thanks from all at WSF :)

And Tight Lines for October.

Mike Thrussell Jnr