Forum maintenance

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 1:17 am

Ironic that I have to start a new topic to say this, but:

I think there's a lot of threads that are redundant on these forums now, and are just taking up space. What's the feeling on forum maintenance? Do we have a policy on purging old (or useless) stuff? Now that the Enc forums are merged, the traffic will increase here and so the database is only going to get bigger and bigger... perhaps we need to keep a closer eye on redundant material and exercise our moderator priveleges more frequently? Or do we keep everything for posterity?

If anyone agrees that this is worthwhile, perhaps as an interim, I can move all the posts that I deem 'superfluous' to a locked forum for review -- once people are happy that the posts aren't required they can be deleted. Or is that just overkill...?

One downside is that it will negate some of the earlier work in merging RTC and DMWeb as I suspect most of the redundant posts will be in there...

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 1:41 am

yes.. kill duplicate posts

.. smash.. destroy.. Danger will robinson danger.. erm.. I mean.

ok.. yeah sounds good. Set them up for the kill and then people state if they should go or stay. We could even have a new post with links to the threads up on the block and then people can review them. Do it over time.. say 5 per week?

could be interesting.. that gives people time to look them over and also gives a week to find 5 more.

moo

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 11:24 am

I agree - probably starting with threads that are older than a year and moving them for a defined review period so protests can be issued if someone thinks there's valuable information in there sounds like a good idea. After all, the point is to find information - if we are having too much of it, that will quite hard.

Regards, PitD

Post by **ChristopheF** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 11:34 am

I would prefer "keeping everything for posterity".
I don't think the current size of the database is real problem for now. We have time until we get forced to purge forums.

Moving posts to locked topics would be acceptable for me, but this is going to be a lot of work parsing every topic, comparing it with other related topics and then moving... And this will add other "archive" forums to look into, increasing the already high number of forums.

I think the large number of posts shows the dedication of fans. When I go to a new forum (not about DM), I like to see that it has been living for a while and that it contains lots of messages. It tell me "I have a real chance to find a an answer to my question here".

And you can always do searches, and limit the results of your search to recent posts if you don't want to get results from the old days.

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 11:41 am

As always, happy to help on the forums I have mod access on.

Unless there are space considerations I would not be too worried about keeping everything, but deleting duplicate posts or threads should be alright.

If you let me know what the rules are (might be an idea to put a link to them at the top of the page or something) I will do my best to enforce them fairly

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 11:57 am

Enforcing is such a hard word...

anyway, I would also vote not for deleting but merely moving them. After all, it was an effort to write them all.

Regards, PitD

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 12:04 pm

so how about that post that says "hey has anyone seen so and so" on all three or four forums? I mean there are things that will be in duplicate or more in here and many posts that have absolutely no intrinsic value at all what so ever.

I don't thing that posterity has anything to do with those posts.. it's more of a pack rat issue at that point.. and I know about pack rat issues.. I have a walk in closet I cannot walk in to

moo

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 12:23 pm

You would have to search them one by one going through every thread - is that worth it as long as the database makes no problems?

Regards, PitD

Post by **Lunever** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 9:24 pm

I agree with Christophe: We shouldn't delete things until there is necessity to do so.
Of course, if someone finds a double post (double = 100% identical, exactly same user with exactly same text), which occasionally happened at the DMWeb probably because of the phbb problems there, that can be deleted.
It's not so easy with double threads (yes, I know, some of them are my fault): Although the thread issue may have been the same initially, often different people gave different replies on former different fora. Merging them (and deleting the actual double posts) would mess up the order of post & reply.

So all in all I vote for leaving things as they are until there is really need to change them.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 9:40 pm

Personally I horde, and shudder to get rid of anything (see the DM BBS as an example)

It would be nice to do the opposite of a sticky post, where you can stick a post right down to the bottom while it retians its date, etc

Post by **Zyx** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 9:50 pm

My vote goes for keeping everything. Only exact duplications in the same thread should be deleted, not that I feel it needs to be done anyway.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 2:13 pm

Calling it a "bottom post" or a "dropdown post" then, Beo?

Regards, PitD

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 5:55 pm

maybe dropkicked? : )