Stream efficiency

[ibaker]

I have 2 sites, site 1 is topic specific and site 2 is Off Topic for site 1. However 99% of the users on the off topic site are also registered on site 1 topic specific site so I was thinking of merging the two together however some users on site 1 are not interested in the Off Topic content and don't want to see that content included in the default Unread Content Stream.

My thought was to have 2 unread content streams, 1 for site topic specific and one for the off topic content however my concern is the efficiency of achieving this. For stream 1 I would have to specifically include 58 forums plus specifically include certain gallery pages etc categories and more while excluding 9 off topic forums and certain gallery, pages etc categories. The 2nd stream i.e. the off topic stream, would have to be the opposite of stream 1.

This I believe would put a huge strain and impact on the load times of each stream causing a negative user experience as the SQL would have to loop through each criteria.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this or can offer any suggestions...thanks.

Oh and also I would have to edit the stream page top block to remove the list of the many inclusions:

[opentype]

2 hours ago, ibaker said:

Does anyone have any thoughts on this or can offer any suggestions

Put the secondary content in a club, so people who are interested can join and see the content, the ones who are not interested see the main site as before. 

[ibaker]

Thanks @opentype for the idea and whilst it would normally be a great option I will soon be adding around 160 clubs into the club section. My site is on recreational aviation so I need to create a club entry for each pilot training and club so the same issue exists if not with forums but it would with clubs.

I have been wracking my brain as to the best way to achieve all this and can't come up with a suitable solution. May mean that I will need to keep the sites separate and users will have to switch between the sites all the time.

[Marc]

I would suggest testing the stream rather than assuming it will be an issue, to be honest. Its very likely it wont be, depending on your server of course.

[Clover13]

@ibaker what did you finally wind up doing?  I have a similar situation of a member base that has a variety of interests and our site has a variety of subforums to accommodate that.  However, our members don't all want the same "default" frontpage activity stream I defined for them.  I too am trying to come up with an approach to manage the situation and make it easy for members to opt in and out without overwhelming them with setup (i.e. they have to opt into 50-100 subforums/clubs).

I guess the pie in the sky would be to structure some level of grouping tied to an "interest" and allowing them to select the "interest" to acquire the grouping of forums/clubs to see in their activity stream.  I know they have the ability to configure their own activity stream as well, but as you noted it has that large ATF section of inclusions and removing it then removes their ability to customize.  Likewise each member would have to bookmark their custom activity stream and use it to land on the content they want versus managing it under the covers for them.

 

[ibaker]

I haven't done anything yet but some testing on my local pc is on the todo list