thread, the conclusion was already reached that Natter and Bitches are us. We came for the Buffy - stayed for the Natter, sort of feeling overcame most of the posters.

I don't think anyone is still seriously proposing that they be eliminated.

Really? Because I just finished Lightbulbs, and I got the feeling that there are people still seriously proposing it, and who would, in fact, do it today if they could escape Death By Bitches.

Cindy, the refresh time is counted in seconds, not minutes.

That's not it.

Right now I'm worried that all this discussion of extreme measures is contributing to a panicky tone.

Code changes have been made. More will be made when fresher eyes than mine have looked at it.

And who knows? A dedicated server may very well be possible, and solve the problem.

I know some of the operations HR couldn't run on their box can run on my lame 512MB PC at home -- a lame dedicated server indeed.

I think we were a strain on Peoplesforum, too.

Though they are huge, I don't think cutting out Natter or Bitches is right. They are where the community happens for the most part.

If we're going to take drastic measures, why not get rid of all the quotable threads? Couldn't the quotes just go in the main threads?

Other madcap suggestions:

COMM, as much as I love it, is just reposting from elsewhere -- if we seriously need to cut down on threads, that's a prime candidate for chopping.

Could the F2F thread be closed until there's planning for the official F2F. Smaller individual F2F could be planned via email on even in Natter.

Close Minearverse until Wonderfalls actually premieres.

Oh, and one more thing, on the Briney, the admins have made the thread lengths pretty small (2,000 for light traffic threads and 5,000 for larger threads) to save on hits to the server. Would that help us any?

the admins have made the thread lengths pretty small (2,000 for light traffic threads and 5,000 for larger threads) to save on hits to the server. Would that help us any?

Nope, not if we keep closed threads in the database.

Nope, not if we keep closed threads in the database.

What if we don't? What if we have 5,000 post threads, and archive them a week after they close?

What if we don't archive at all?

I think archiving closed threads promptly (say, after 1 week) makes a LOT of sense, whatever that's worth.

What if we have 5,000 post threads, and archive them a week after they close?

That would make a difference.

But I'd recommend heartily against changing everything all at once. We'd never know what made a difference, and what was just panic.

We're blessed with the ability to talk with our web hosts. Let's take advantage of this, and tweak, and do this strategically..

From what Kristen is saying, it sounds like the problem is serious. So IMO, it's perfectly legit to discuss our options so, at the least, we'd be ready to go right away if we have to. And, while I may misunderstand the sitch, we need to at least discuss serious measures. And our dreams of having the exact board we want is up against the technical limits.

A lot of the ideas are good and necessary (I've disabled my auto-refresh). But how much good will they do? Enough? It sounds like even the experts don't know. Maybe it isn't knowable until we actually put things into effect.

So I'd suggest that if it proves necessary, and other measures have failed, as a last resort, we ditch Natter, Bitches, and Un-American, to be replaced by a completely new thread, to make it clear that no one thread is swallowing up the others. Call it Cocktail Party, or something like that.

I don't think it's been proved necessary yet, and I hope it will never be necessary. But I'll toss it onto the table as a compromise measure.

(Edit to note that this xposts everything since Teppy's post #4449, and to re-emphasize that I'm not suggesting we do this now. And much as I enjoy COMM, I'd be willing to live without it.)