Right now, the threads are broken into three groups -- default (centre panel), admin, and tools/archives.

What is thought of the idea of adding a fourth group -- closed. This could clear up the main panel if threads are moved automatically on closing, and I think it would make a couple pages faster. There could be a separate page for closed threads. Which would still be in the read new rotation.

Or would that make things too confusing?

Does there have to be a separate page in order to gain the benefits of it? Or can it just sit at the bottom, aesthetically the same?

If they're displayed on the page, there is no gain.

In that case, I vote for new page and gain. And also, do we have policy for how long closed threads stay up before archival, or is it just until DX gets to do his thread-editing mojo?

There are two things that need to happen -- DX does his mojo, and I do some too. Except my mojo doesn't work with this version of MySQL, so there hasn't been any done since we moved in.

main query that populates both the main page and the message centre now runs 80% faster.

Who is a star? ita is a frellin' supernova. Yeaaaa!

Heh.

If anyone feels like applying themselves to further SQL optimisations, please submit resumes.

I asked istrata support about why we're so far behind in versions from the rest of the world. It's a Plesk (our control panel) issue. If I had SSH access from work, I'd not be so leery about breaking Plesk -- as it, it's the only way I can get in to do a lot of stuff, a lot of the time. Here's the support answer:

These packages were provided by RedHat in 7.3 which as you know is end of lifed. Updates that are available from the Fedora Legacy Project are security fixes only, no new versions of software will be introduced. That said you can safely upgrade MySQL to my knowledge (but do so at your own risk :-), but upgrading PHP, at least with the standard PHP RPMs will break Plesk. There is a guy on the Plesk Forums (Something like Atomic Monkey) that is building his own Plesk friendly RPMs but they are not supported so proceed cautiously if you decide to use them. The best solution I have is Plesk 7 which was recently released (you're running version 5). Plesk 7 includes an upgrade of PHP to 4.3.8 among many other enhancements (Application Vault, Spam Assassin, new skins, and lots of other cool features.). I can upgrade your Plesk installation to the latest version for $99.

Huh. Yeah, it's no fun to break the control panel.

I reckon we could at least upgrade to the point that we're able to. But it looks like we'll need to deal with it at some point in the future, huh? Anyway, do we know if upgrading MySQL will help our Big Problem? Because that would be good, and worth doing, if cautiously, if so.

Don't know about MySQL -- we're at 3.23 right now. It goes as high as 5. Could do, could do.

Spend the $99, ita. I'll contribute, if it'll help. 3.23 is ancient, and it's not going to get any better.