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Just donated, went through quickly with no problems.
Proud $2300 member
(now working on husbands $2300)
This would be a great test problem in an operations management test. The question on the test is: Given the data that is served by the Ron Paul Donation Widget, is there a queue?
The correct answer is: It cannot be determined by the information provided.
The probable answer that can be extrapolated is: Yes
There are only two simple ways to disprove the probable answer.
1) Ask the IT guy at ronpaul2008.com
2) Run a credit card with intentionally incorrect data that cannot be determined through ronpaul2008.com validation
#2 is a crime (fraud)
#1 is not likely to get a response today. The (wo)man/men are just trying to keep the train on the track.
So, how would you go about showing your work to prove that it is a queue?
1) You must determine what the relevant data is
2) You must declare your assumptions
3) Since this service is automated, you must determine where variance enters
#1. Dollars and donuts don't matter here.
a. donations are the only thing that matter
#2. Assumptions
a. One donor - one credit card transaction
b. Widget total isn't updated until a card is successfully authorized (as opposed to it being updated upon me submitting, without the CC check ever occurring)
#3. Variance
a. Request/Response with CC processing company - several servers in the chain of requests that all have handshaking to do. There is room for a lot of variance here when you're looking at the thousands of transactions taking place. Some request/response round trips will take 1.2 seconds, some 0.8 seconds, some 4.1 seconds, etc. In addition this can be made even greater if the CC processing company is in a queued state with other vendor requests.
b. Widget REST response isn't updated upon a transaction, but rather on time (every minute or every 30 seconds,etc), this one is often overlooked because we see lines on a graph and assume continuity between the data points and that the data points are consistent intervals. They are not. Some are 1 minute between data points, some are 1 minute 30 seconds. Some are 1 minute 55 seconds, etc.
c. Is the database/service engine subject to the same resource pool as the webserver? If it is, the cc processor may not have immediate access to run at times.
d. Is the CC transaction initiated by the donor's submission on the site. Or are new requests pooled and then gathered at interval (think cron). Sometime the cron will have no work, sometimes it will have a lot of work, it may not go back and look for more work until it has finished the work it has.
All of these will create variation in donation data points most especially when a queue exists. Since there is no logical reason for a presidential campaign to address this bottleneck (no campaign averages more than 3,000 transactions/day) and only one campaign has ever reported totals in real time), why would one expect to take the time to code for this possibility?
Edit: Watch a simulated queue in action:
http://www.mit.edu/~orc/informs/Inte...ueuingDoc.html
http://www.mit.edu/~orc/informs/Inte...s/Queuing.html
The rate function is the derivative the the total donations function. You would have to integrate the rate function to yield the total donations at any one point.
I am no calculus expert, but I have taken through multi-variable calculus (3rd semester college calculus), and I do believe we were bumping up against a processing limit at 11:30 AM: http://paulcash.slact.net/today-paulpeople.png
I just donated, first time didn't go through, but tried an hour later and it did. Saw my name on the widget within one minute, you have to go back to the home page real fast.
If the servers can't keep up, we still have another 2 weeks to collect money from anyone who couldn't get through. I think most people understand the internet enough to know what is happening.
THEY'LL BE BAHCK!!
Anyone disputing RonPaulVolunteer's claim, please just take out a pencil and paper and convert the rate graph to a totals graph. You can convert on the interval of the hour or 15 minutes and it will not matter, you will get a totals graph who's slope varies quite a bit hour by hour or 15 minute by 15 minute, it will not look like the linear totals graph on ronpaulgraphs. It's very simple to do and please don't argue any more until you do this...
One of the two graphs is incorrect, plain and simple, I assume that it's the ronpaulgraphs graph. We need to figure out at the end of all this which one it is and hopefully it is not the ronpaulgraphs.com one which is linear and would indicate some kind of artificial regulation, most likely server load.
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