read only users don't need "really-real time" as much as contributing authors. Let's use that to our advantage.

[JohnMcLear]

Given our current SocketIO 10k msgs/sec constraint it may make sense to find a way to make non-contributing "lurkers" able to receive "batches" of changesets as opposed to "really-real-time"..

The reasoning is essentially if instead of a msg every 10ms to a lurker, you do it every 100ms as a batch of changesets you reduce socketio server load by 10x and the latency is/should be barely noticeable to someone lurking...

Something to consider anyway and might not fall within the remit of this plugin.

Also I'm really keen on moving away from SocketIO which would have the most meaningful impact on Etherpad performance.

[rhansen]

This will have to be fixed in Etherpad core. Other changes that would reduce overhead from read-only users:

• Don't show read-only users in the user list.
• Don't create an author ID for read-only users.

[JohnMcLear]

Agreed, note that "Don't show read-only users in the user list.", it might be nice to see "X number of watchers"