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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga.org site announcements => Topic started by: on December 15, 2002, 08:12:13 PM

Title: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 15, 2002, 08:12:13 PM
Pursuant to the announcement the other day, the forums have now been pruned to 120 days.  This has gotten rid of about 35000 posts, and diminished the database size by about 30 mb.  

I know the CPU appreciates the change, but let us know if the site feels any different or you notice errors.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 15, 2002, 10:08:25 PM
why does it even need to be 120 days old?... I mean seriousely.. I'd think 30 days of archive is enough....or even 7 days... who needs the giant archive... I doubt anyone here really looks back that far.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: GadgetMaster on December 15, 2002, 10:35:04 PM
@mips_proc

Quote
I doubt anyone here really looks back that far


Sometimes its useful, such as when searching for an obscure link that someone might have posted.

@Wayne

Everything seems to be working fine. No problems noted.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 15, 2002, 10:37:20 PM
Sometimes yes but ive noticed in most cases you can just ask agian for that link from ... and people seem to know what you mean. I think a mounth is good i forget to check my posts after a day or so anyway.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: cyka_delik on December 16, 2002, 01:56:44 PM
i don't generally check that far back. though some might.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: amigamad on December 16, 2002, 02:34:26 PM
With all the new members there must be quite a lot of space used by forum posts and if it goes back a 120 days why not cut it to 60 or 90 days. Site works fine as always .
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: whabang on December 16, 2002, 03:16:24 PM
I haven't found any problems, but please don't remove more!
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Wilse on December 16, 2002, 03:25:29 PM
Hi Wayne,

Quote
but let us know if the site feels any different or you notice errors.


I've noticed twice today that forum topics have not turned red, even though they contain new messages.
I don't know if it's my browser or what but I never noticed it before.

No real problem.
Just letting you know. :-)
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 16, 2002, 03:43:47 PM
I'd say about 30 days.
Most people stop posting and lose interest on a thread after a week or so. That's my experience anyway.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 16, 2002, 04:37:03 PM
Quote
please don't remove more!
I understand that some topics are important, butthe problem is, if we preserve those, they're marked as "sticky" topics and moved to the top of the sticky list.  I don't know how well it would work to have five pages of sticky topics, some of which will be very old.

Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Argo on December 16, 2002, 04:44:36 PM
Why not 24 hours...?
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 16, 2002, 04:50:58 PM
Argo,

Now you're simply being "silly"...  Remember, not everyone checks here every 24 hours.  It's a forum, not an IRC chat :)

Some conversations will and do need to be preserved for prosperity.  We're looking at possibilities.

Wayne

Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: vortexau on December 16, 2002, 05:00:32 PM
Wayne said:
Quote
Some conversations will and do need to be preserved for prosperity. We're looking at possibilities.


Wow! So some time in the future there may be CDs available named -
"AmigaOrg Troll-fests, Flame-wars, and other tales of Digital Angst vol-1,2,3"?

:-D

Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Argo on December 16, 2002, 05:22:32 PM
Wayne:
   Well, yeah, I though a week was too short. 120 to 90 days seems like it should be good enought.
Then again, 24 hours... Okay, since you say people don't check that often, how about 24.6 hours (a Martian day). It would cut those 15+ page topic down considerably... not to mention flames...
Your right too silly.

Any idea what the problem is? Is it really the size of the database or in combination with the amount of traffic?
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: quenthal on December 17, 2002, 09:39:29 PM
I think that "normal" messages in "talk about" could be cleared after a few days/weeks, but discussion on hardware/software problems would be nice to stay on longer (="forever")
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: tonyw on December 18, 2002, 08:22:10 AM
Wayne, the response to a new submission is certainly faster. It now seems to load the modified page in very quick fashion.

tony

PS I like the Submit/Preview buttons. Much more elegant.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: harvlaser on December 18, 2002, 08:37:23 AM
Quote
why does it even need to be 120 days old?... I mean seriousely.. I'd think 30 days of archive is enough....or even 7 days... who needs the giant archive... I doubt anyone here really looks back that far.


It's called "History."

Does your local library throw out books older than 120 days old?

AmigaZone has a "Press Releases/News" Message base that goes back over six years. It's easily and quickly searched, and nothing is ever deleted from it, except for the occasional spam that creeps in..

History is important, at least, it is to me. YMMV..

Harv
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Wilse on December 18, 2002, 12:40:07 PM
Quote

quenthal wrote:
I think that "normal" messages in "talk about" could be cleared after a few days/weeks, but discussion on hardware/software problems would be nice to stay on longer (="forever")


Noooooo! Don't listen to him Wayne!  :-)

Seriously, "Talk About" is my favourite part of the site - it's why I spend about 20 times longer here than any other amiga related website. Actually forget the "amiga related", I spend about twenty times longer here than *any* other website. And "talk about" is the main reason.
Please don't change it too much.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Glaucus on December 18, 2002, 03:31:35 PM
Quote
why does it even need to be 120 days old?... I mean seriousely.. I'd think 30 days of archive is enough....or even 7 days... who needs the giant archive... I doubt anyone here really looks back that far.


Well I can think of one great reason: For all those "how to" and "my Amiga is broken" questions that seem to come up again and again.  People could search the archives for answers to common questions instead of them being answered over and over again.  Same goes for developer information.  Not all the discussions here are pointless and meaningless!  :)

  - Mike
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 18, 2002, 03:59:13 PM
@Glaucus,

The problem is, NOBODY ever bothers searching.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: odin on December 18, 2002, 05:42:32 PM
Quote

Wayne wrote:
@Glaucus,
The problem is, NOBODY ever bothers searching.


Just like a real library ;-).
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Glaucus on December 18, 2002, 06:48:26 PM
Quote
I understand that some topics are important, butthe problem is, if we preserve those, they're marked as "sticky" topics and moved to the top of the sticky list. I don't know how well it would work to have five pages of sticky topics, some of which will be very old.


How about creating an "Archives" forum that contains ONLY stickies.  In otherwords no one could post into the archives, but of course can browse the sticky (or archived) posts.

Threads could also be compressed into .lha or .zip formats and stored in a downloads section.  OR you could just throw them onto Aminet and let them be someone else's problem.  ;-)

  - Mike
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: harvlaser on December 18, 2002, 07:45:15 PM
Quote
The problem is, NOBODY ever bothers searching.


I do, because your front page only lists ten "Forum" topics.. can't you expand it like you can expand the number of News items shown with one one of those pull-down thingies??..

Harv
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 18, 2002, 07:46:57 PM
@Harv

The "latest posts" link at the top of the forums doesn't help?
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: tonyw on December 18, 2002, 09:26:39 PM
Is it supposed to be usable by plebs? It tells me that I don't have authority to use it.

tony
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 18, 2002, 09:32:41 PM
Hmmm. let me look at it.  Registered users have access.
Quote

tonyw wrote:
Is it supposed to be usable by plebs? It tells me that I don't have authority to use it.

tony
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: FarQuad on December 18, 2002, 09:34:06 PM
As a regular user, I can vouch that I can get to it.  I couldn't earlier though.  Maybe log out and back in?

//FarQ
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Quixote on December 18, 2002, 10:04:09 PM
Quote
Wayne wrote:

...let us know if the site feels any different or you notice errors.
:-? This is probably not related to pruning back the older posts, but for some reason the HTML in my signature is no longer rendered correctly.  I haven't changed anything at this end.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Mike_Amiga on December 18, 2002, 10:07:37 PM
'Ery  ting cool man! :python: :-P
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 18, 2002, 10:35:13 PM
The ability to use HTML in signatures has been removed as a security precaution.  Please use BB code instead
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: ensu on December 18, 2002, 10:54:53 PM
Quote

Wayne wrote:
The ability to use HTML in signatures has been removed as a security precaution.  Please use BB code instead

so please tell me which BB codes i could use to restore my signature :-(

ciao...
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Paul_Gadd on December 18, 2002, 11:38:34 PM
The Amiga.org IRC channell is a good place but for some reason it is like a Morgue all the time, advertise it in BIG BOLD LETTERS on the main page.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: on December 19, 2002, 12:34:58 AM
@paul

and this has what to do with the pruning of forums?
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Paul_Gadd on December 19, 2002, 01:16:40 AM
The message was a suggestion but was supposed to go in "Pleasant changes to Amiga.org noticed and appreciated" subject not this one  :-)
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Quixote on December 19, 2002, 03:41:41 PM
Wayne said:
Quote
...Please use BB code instead.
:-? I'm guessing that "BB code" means "Bulletin Board" code or something similar.  How is that implimented, then?
 
;-) By the way, I noticed that you've used Skippy's separate Preview and Submit buttons, as he had on Amiga Realm.  Nice touch.  But it's only implimented for posting in the forums, and not for replying to news items, yet.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Quixote on December 19, 2002, 04:49:45 PM
Quixote querried:
Quote
Wayne said:
Quote
...Please use BB code instead.
:-? I'm guessing that "BB code" means "Bulletin Board" code or something similar.  How is that implimented, then?
:-D Okay, I've worked it out on my own: BB code is the same stuff used when replying to messages here.  I notice that signatures can still be made into hyperlinks.  
:-? Which HTML features are not implimented, then?  Javascript?  Or is that the wrong question to ask here?
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Quixote on December 19, 2002, 05:04:22 PM
ensu wrote:
Quote
...so please tell me which BB codes i could use to restore my signature :-(


;-) I've reproduced the codes you need below.  Just replace the curly brackets with square brackets and it'll work.  (If I'd used the square ones, the Xoops engine would replace them with the proper HTML tags.)

The codes for size are:
{size=xx-small}text{/size}
{size=x-small}text{/size}
{size=small}text{/size}
{size=medium}text{/size}
{size=large}text{/size}
{size=x-large}text{/size}
{size=xx-large}text{/size}

An example of color:
{color=000099}text{/color}
(substitute whichever color you want)

Bold, italic and underline are
{b}text{/b}, {i}text{/i}, {u}text{/u}
respectively.

:-D Have fun...
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Mike_Amiga on December 19, 2002, 11:36:50 PM
My signature still appears to be there. Whats BB code? Am I using it? I really don't know what I'm doing here but it looks like html to me?!? :-?  :-?  :-?  My brain hurts! :-(
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Quixote on December 20, 2002, 01:38:25 AM
Mike_Amiga puzzled:
Quote
...Whats BB code?
;-) It's what I outlined in my post above.  Amiga.org uses the Xoops software to render the pages on the fly.  When you give it codes like the ones above, Xoops replaces them with proper HTML.  The only advantage that I can think of is that the BB code may not include all of the same codes that are in HTML.  In fact, Wayne may be able to select which codes are or are not supported.  This to prevent abuse, as Wayne mentioned earlier in this thread.

:-? As for why your signature wasn't affected, I have no idea.  If you're using proper HTML angle brackets, it shouldn't work.  If you're using square brackets, that's BB code.  (If I've figured it out correctly.)
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: ensu on December 20, 2002, 10:51:07 PM
I think he uses neither HTML nor BB. Just two XOOPS smilies and some text.

ciao...

P.S.: thanx for your help.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Quixote on December 21, 2002, 05:20:32 AM
Ensu enthused:
Quote
P.S.: thankx for your help.
;-) Any time.  Helping others is the fun part of Amiga.org.  It's why I'm here as much as I am.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Glaucus on May 18, 2003, 06:23:10 PM
Quote

vortexau wrote:
Wayne said:
Quote
Some conversations will and do need to be preserved for prosperity. We're looking at possibilities.


Wow! So some time in the future there may be CDs available named -
"AmigaOrg Troll-fests, Flame-wars, and other tales of Digital Angst vol-1,2,3"?

:-D

Not only that, we could hand out awards to exceptional posts. Some of the categories could include: "Flame Bait Of The Year", "Most Moderated User", "Most Offensive Post", "Most Humorous Post", "Most Badly Spelled Post", "Most Grammatically Incorrect Post" and of course "Most Intelligent and Thoughtful Post" (which I'm sure I'm bound to win hands down! ;-) ).

:-D

  - Mike
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Cyberus on May 18, 2003, 06:57:32 PM
@ Glaucus and Wayne

I agree with Glaucus on the point of e.g. the hardware questions that always pop up - it'd be nice if you could search back through them

But at the same time I agree with you Wayne - people just don't search back to find if that Q has already been answered recently (I know I've been guilty of this!)

So the answer - a FAQ section
The problem - who's got the time to produce one? I for one just do not have the time, and am not as knowledgeable as some here in any case :-D
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: jeffimix on May 19, 2003, 11:43:20 PM
It's good that your cleaning up the forums. They've always had rediculous amounts of back pages. Would it help your problems if I didn;t browse in 5 tabs at once (like I'm currently doing)?
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: cecilia on May 20, 2003, 12:56:00 AM
Quote

Wayne wrote:
@Glaucus,

The problem is, NOBODY ever bothers searching.
not true. before i post a question, i always search. always!
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: Atheist on May 26, 2003, 01:32:50 PM
Yes, it would be tres cool, if the history was available on cd's or Aminet.

AmigaOne! Soap opera, 18 years in the making.
Title: Re: Forums Pruned
Post by: elendil on May 26, 2003, 03:17:52 PM
Make a faq that works like the news system. Users submit faqs (not fags), moderators approve and they are displayed in the faq section.

Btw: this is a wonderful thread. helpful and funny posts, that doesn't seem to be at anyones expense.

rocking, rocking.

Sincerely,

-Kenneth Straarup.