"If we all pitch in, we can make a difference."

Smokey the Buffista? "Remember, only YOU can prevent server fires...."

Four posts per hour was a BIG reason I never got involved in the Bronze. It may conserve resources, but it kills conversation, which I enjoy. It makes no distinction between a passionate discussion of the theology of vampirism and "Slut!" "Bigger slut!" "Goldfish!". In the former case, the discussion is MUCH more interesting if people argue, debate, and refine their positions; four posts doesn't cut it. In the latter, one post is too many.

Not that I have strong opinions or anything.

Hm. I think you're completely wrong, Betsy. I had better conversations, arguments, debates, and discussions in the olden days at the Bronze than anywhere else. Waiting fifteen minutes to post? That's fifteen minutes for me to think about how I want to respond, and write something eloquent. Heat of the moment posts? Sometimes leads to hyperbole and drivel. Not that that would happen with our precious Buffistas.

Signed,

Bronzer who doesn't appreciate the implication that she couldn't have equally, if not more, interesting conversations at the Bronze

Allyson, I'm not saying the Bronze wasn't a valid and important community. I am saying that the four-posts-per-hour limit kept it from ever becoming my community.

That's not what you said, Betsy, you said that four posts per hour was a conversation killer and that it wasn't interesting. Maybe the "for me" was silently implied.

I am sorry I insulted the Bronze. I didn't mean to.

Let me say what I should have said. To me, an important part of the character of Buffistas is that we have long conversations with multiple contributions. I would not have joined Buffistas if we had had a four-post-per-hour limit. I will probably drift away from Buffistas if we install such a limit.

I am going to try to Meara more than I do, and I'm going to think carefully before posting. I recognize my responsibility to cut back on posts.

Thanks for rewording that, Betsy. I didn't want to argue with you, but the Bronze, she meant a great deal to me.

As a semi-lurker, I don't come into these threads hardly ever, but I read others religiously. If someone (a stompy maybe?) could post the few things we could do now to help in Press or something, that may help reach others like me. I just reset my refresh to 0 and changed the number of posts per page to 25. Anything else that we can do now to help?

I don’t think legislating Buffista behavior is going to solve the overall problem, and will probably cause some resentment in the long run.

Nobody's legislating anything. They're making suggestions. If even some people take up Kristen on the suggestions she's made about steps to conserve usage, then you all are already ahead. By a huge amount? No, but by a little, which leads me to:

Trying to significantly reduce usage by outlawing numberslutting or limiting posts is going to have such a small effect on the overall problem that its social cost far outweighs its potential benefits.

I feel like some people are trying to find the magic catch-all, the big gaping wound in the Buffistas' side that, when cleared up, will totally do away with the problem. There may be some code issues that could help, but I think people need to consider that a couple of smaller things (combining threads, not numberslutting, responding to even just two posts at one time, rather than two posts with another three), when added up, could help the situation.

Also, re:

Whether that means raising money for a bigger piece of fangeek’s server

Just so we're clear, you can buy more space, but there really is no "buying a bigger piece" of our server. The problem is with the number of MySQL connections, and Buffistas.org is using up all of ours. Not one of the other clients we have uses MySQL on their sites.

A simple question, for one catching up: Will a dedicated server solve the problem? Yea or nay?