My SQL abilities are my weak point, so bear with me -- what about an array variable in the user table? So for every userid, there would be an open ended array. Whenever a user MARCIEd someone, the MARCIE-ee would get appended to the array. Then the code would check if $poster was contained in the array for that user.

I (and John will bear me out, once he stops laughing or rolling his eyes) am Normalisation's bitch. And what John proposed is precisely normal -- relationships other than one-to-one should have their own table. Your suggestion is how I'd represent the data inside the PHP object, but when I have a little less of a pounding headache maybe I can explain to you why it's less good for the underlying structure.

Which isn't supposed to sound condescending or dismissive, but I fear it may.

I shoulda just typed "BECAUSE IT'S WRONG!!!", shouldn't I?

EDIT: in reply to Jon.

So that would be more like:

if($poster in( $marcied_posters_array) ){ next; }

right? I can't remember the exact look-things-up-in-an-array syntax.

But ita's right of course, even if she is in an abusive relationship with normalisation.

That's how the data would be stored.

Then it would be taken out, on a page-by-page basis, and stored in an array of $this_buffistas_marcied_people.

Forgive the ignorance, but is {next;} in your examples shorthand for "do whatever MARCIE does" or does it just mean "skip this post"?

Because I thought that MARCIE'd posts were going to look more like deleted ones, only with "this post made blinvisible by MARCIE" instead of "deleted by so and so."

That way, it's easier to see that there are posts other people are responding to, and the conversation looks less Dada-ish.

Jess, MARCIE display discussion starts about here: Noumenon "Buffistas Building a Better Board" Mar 3, 2003 12:30:02 pm EST

Which isn't supposed to sound condescending or dismissive, but I fear it may.

Not at all. Like I said, relational databases/SQL are my weak point. One of the reasons I like coding this place is because the code is so pretty -- it's a good framework from which to learn.

I shoulda just typed "BECAUSE IT'S WRONG!!!", shouldn't I?

No, but you shoulda typed Normalization.

{next;}

Probably isn't even correct PHP code. Very much shorthand.

Jess, MARCIE display discussion starts about here:

ita, yes, that's the discussion I was referring to. I just wanted to know what {next;} means -- if it's real code, or shorthand.

[ah, question answered]

Okay, I'm still confused on how this CVS thing works but if you guys need someone to host it, and it's possible to host on our server, Monique and I are willing to give you however much space you need.

Well, not however much. I think we only have, like, 1 GB of server space available but you won't need more than that, right?

We're over on [link] if anyone wants to take a look and see.

If I'm misunderstanding how it works and you need something other than web space...well, it wouldn't be the first time I was an idiot.