Why not experiment? Set the limit at 150 or 200 15ppp pages and see what happens. If there is no improvement (and I have trouble believing that there wouldn't be) then we bump the limit down a little bit and see what happens. And so on. Jesse promises to be fair and look for progress rather than perfection and the rest of us promise to be grownups if he has to reduce the limits.
He started at 200, and has moved to 350. You guys are asking over 4x his offer. That's not negotiation. Frankly, I don't think 1500 post limit threads are going to make that much of a difference. It'll help, but they would still be using a disproportionate amount of BS resources, so in the end I doubt it would make much of a difference. I've done a lot of database work, and while I haven't seen the vBulletin code, I can imagine how it likely works. If you double the length of the thread, you probably double the processor and RAM requirements to deal with the query results in a timely manner. Again, I'm not privy to any inside information, and am simply stating what I personally believe would be in the best interests of the community at large.
Yeah that'd really cut down on the page turn posts wouldn't it? Then where'd the fun be? Was just a suggestion, seems like it's more appropriate for what you guys are doing but if you like the set up you've got, hey.
1. We weren't privy to the original decision. As far as most of the members are concerend, 350 is the starting point from Huss. b. Negotiation entails a series of offers and counter-offers from both sides. Huss has made his, we've made ours. gamma. Is there a better techical solution? mIRC won't cut it because that's like throwing your door open and posting a sign that says "THIEVES: VALUABLES THIS WAY". iv. Would BS be willing (for a fee) to host a different type of message/chat format for these types of threads? I'd pay an extra $10 a year for that sort of thing. Sachin
Here's a recent example, two weeks ago Thursday my office moved and I shut down around 4:00 PM and packed up my computer. I helped my boss organize things at the new place and didn't get home until 2:00 AM. The next day was filled with unpacking and dealing with the problems caused by the integration to the new network and the Sasser virus, all of which prevented me from logging on to Big Soccer. But when I was finally able to get back on, it was good to be able to hit that "Read Last Unread Post" button and pick up my threads right where I left off. With a 350-post limit, I would've missed three, maybe four entire threads. Now, if I was one of the people in the threads whose life only affords them a few hours each day on BS (and I've noticed that those on BSSM who are most pissed off fall into that category. I can't speak for those in other threads), it would ultimately prove frustrating to read through a few threads to find out what my friends are up to today because I couldn't respond to them. I would feel screwed by the Administrators, especially if I gave them money to help support the site and go to improvements to make those few hours I use to spend on BS run smoother. Does that make sense?
I'm thinking a good compromise would be either 150 or 200 pages at 15pp. Either that or potentially close our threads every Sunday night. This would do the following. -drastically reduce the number of posts. A thread of 200 pages or a week long is far under the volume of a 1000 page thread, and BSSM was often the shortest of the threads. -Allow us to not have to read two or three separate threads and cut and paste responses to questions and comments. -Save Capt. Splarg the moderation madness that arises from having to lock a half dozen threads every day. -Allow us to moderate this ourselves. I'm fairly certain that if we're helping Bigsoccer we would all agree to a number like 200 pages and police ourselves. -This would save some of the other great threads like the Yank kid at Torinho and the Fire Andrulis thread. And finaly I'd like to apologize for acting like a tool on pages one and two of this thread.
I'd personally love to have a chat room on here, especially for when the boards are kinda dead. In regards to your mIRC comment though you coudl very easily password protect or do a bunch of different things to make sure it was a more insolated community and every HotGrrrl420 wasn't hoping into it.
Nah that was before my time. I weigh in on the subject because I enjoy bigsoccer and like contributing to it as well as contribute to its standards and I'm an oppinionated guy. The 'what do I care' was a bit of a throw away comment, I'm really just trying to be nice.
Negotiation: We are trying the limit that has been imposed on us without discussion. So far, it has proved unpopular. So let us try 100 pages. If that does not work, there is scope for middle ground. Moving off onto mIRC or other just would not work. mIRC is not searchable in the same way that BS is. In addition, it takes people away from BS. On Sachin's point regarding paying more for added functionality, I am not sure where I stand. Part of me thinks that we support enough as it is, and another part also says that it is too similar a solution to mIRC or other chat hosts. It also would not be the same as the current format - and it does seems as if a message board format works for the majority of people. So this is a tough call. If it were possible, then perhaps it might be a solution. However, I am inclined to think we can sort this out using the existing framework. Regarding the "minority" of FFA posters hampering the "majority" of BS posters, I disagree. BS may well run easier with smaller threads, but not if there are many, many smaller threads - which is very possible, given the rate of posting on many of the large threads. And it is not just in FFA that large threads exist, especially where heated discussions about semantics and politics creep into legitimate soccer discussions, even if not on the scale of 18,000 posts. This post limit system is being tested here first, before being rolled out to other boards. It is in everyone's interest to find a solution here. So, be it 100 pages, or 50, or whatever the limit ends up being, the point is that it works for the majority. Saying that the minority hinders the action of the majority is counterproductive to what we are trying to achieve.
The moderators were actually told to lock at 500, though I posted here that the number was 350. Why, I'm not sure now. Trying to leave breathing room, I guess. Those were posts, not pages, though. We used to have a chat room. No one used it, except during big events. I'm happy to let the users lead this effort rather than the mods. We shoulda done it first. My instinct says 100 pages won't accomplish anything, and 50 might. That's 750 posts, 50% more than we asked the moderators to lock at.
so let's go with 750 posts...moderate ourselves. that should appease both groups. we can have a trial period, see how it works and go from there.
Which would be fine if so much of the criticism weren't people on an Internet message board telling other people on an Internet message board to get a life. High comedy. You use Big Soccer one way. I use it another. Neither of us is a better person, yet there are those who think that people who have developed and maintain friendships through Big Soccer are losers and worthy of scorn. I'll put it the same way I did when a former co-worker brought it up - she talked on the phone to her parents at least twice a day each and made at least one other personal phone call per hour. I almost never use the phone for personal business at work, yet catch up with friends here. The mode of communication does not define a person's worth.
I could be way off with my reading of the VBoard thread of this issue, but it seems like the server issues increase not exponentially, but at a much increased rate as the threads get REALLY big. I think 65.000 posts was mentioned. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we're talking about day to day performance issues and not complete board stability issues. Why don't we try 200 pages for a trial time, call it two weeks. At the end of the two weeks if the servers need more help then lets cut 50 pages off of that. eventually we can whittle the post amounts down untill we find the optimal combination of length and server abilities.
Because this impacts all of us. Ironically enough, I got a server busy message trying to read this thread. In reply to, uh, monster's (?) post re: friendships - I too have plenty of people I would call friends I've met via BigSoccer. Shared beers, stories, and even my floor with them. That's not the issue here at all. Oh, and I'd get fired if I made one personal call an hour at work. I'm probably lucky I don't get fired for posting on BigSoccer.
Would you offer $4500 on a car priced at $20000 and expect to be taken seriously? Not necessarily. A server could be set up that didn't hook to the wider network. Your only way to connect would be thru, say, irc.bigsoccer.com. Another possible solution would be to set up some kind of blogging system that writes static pages, since the issue is most likely fetching 7000 posts from a database. Or, you could set up your own blog threads in your personal forums - for those of you who are Premies - and people can come read those to find out what you are up to. It's easy to subscribe to threads. Again, the problem is that you guys are attempting to use vBulletin in a way it wasn't really designed to be used. You can't really expect it to work well in that way, especially with how big the rest of BigSoccer is.
Once, when asked by a car salesmen "What can I do to get you to take this off my hands today," I responded with "Give me the keys." The look on his face was priceless.
Hehe. I would've liked to see that. Actually, I just had another good idea. At least, I thought it was a good idea. Set up a "BSSM Listserv" email list. Email is much better suited for this kind of use than a message board. Everybody interested can sign up, and it doesn't crash BigSoccer for the rest of us. Archival, instant notification, threading - all there. Server load - not there.