Oh god, Perkins, I'm really sorry. I totally didn't want to be jumping on you, and actually, I figured you weren't that serious. I just wanted to make my own little position clear, which is that yes, there are things we can all do to conserve, but no, we don't need to freak out over it, and honestly, I haven't seen anyone proposing rules for how to post, just suggestions which people can follow or not.

I think this is a recurring problem in the conversation about What Should We Do To Save The Buffistas -- we're all having trouble "hearing" people's tones of voice to tell if they're kidding, or exaggerating for effect, or are dead serious. Just something for everyone to keep in mind. It's hard to joke on the internet.

Thanks Jesse. Again, I'm sorry if I was "reading" your post wrong. I know that we are all trying to save the board, as best we can, based on our own visions of the board. I think the fact that we need to probably has us all a little on edge, myself definitely included, and we should all take that into account.

3 - Got your Message Center on auto-refresh even when you're away from your computer? Tsk tsk -- every one of those refreshes is a hit to the database. Set your auto-refresh to "0" (no refresh) when you're not actively reading or posting.

If we think this is a good idea, we should code it in. It's a simple change to make.

Perhaps a compromise of "post one liners and have the glitter fights when the board is quiet" or something of the like?

As others have noted, the items Jess has posted are guidelines rather than rules, and Daniel's point about "when the board is quiet" is dead on. Our biggest problem is the number of simultaneous connections to the database. This is going to be much more of a problem when there are more people posting and reading than it is when there are only a few people around. Glitter fights in the middle of the night shouldn't be a problem. Twenty "Happy birthdays" in a row at 1 pm EDT on a Wednesday probably would be.

Still have my own issues with #1, Jess. Sometimes Happy Birthdays by others are the only way people know birthdays are happening.

I'm just going to put my Happy Birthdays in posts that contain other stuff as well, and cut out the one liners.

If we think this is a good idea, we should code it in. It's a simple change to make.

I'd like to see us do it after we get our next bit of feedback from Kristen and Monique to see how we're doing since the RQG was shut off (assuming it's still necessary). I think we should do it at least until after the Angel premiere (which is the date that Kristen's got her eye on for our danger point).

Set your auto-refresh to "0" (no refresh) when you're not actively reading or posting.

If we think this is a good idea, we should code it in. It's a simple change to make.

Or at least change the default to a minimum of 10, 15 or even 20 minutes.

Is there a way to code it so that if an an account refreshes with the same interval three times in a row without other activity, the board automatically resets the refresh on that account to zero?

That's probably too complicated, I guess.

But the minimum to at least 15 (heck even 10) should be a no brainer to reduce traffic.

RE auto-refresh - speaking for myself, getting rid of it would actually make me click more rather than less. If I don't have auto-refresh I'm going to be clicking every thirty seconds, thinking "is there a new message now? How 'bout now?"

I agree Katie-- I think an announcement not to just keep the browser window open, refreshing every minute, and then leave for 12 hours might be the right thing to do.

I have a slight problem - I have my refresh set to zero, and I only hit "read new". But I get lost with 50 posts per page - I tried it for two days and fetched up in tears, literally, in frustration. I missed at least four posts that were addressed to directly to me, and I hate that, because I feel as though I'm committing bad manners at people, when honestly, the posts got lost in the shuffle. And if I have to keep hitting "previous" to see if I've missed something, aren't I stressing the board anyway?

I had the posts-per-page at ten, and I've bumped it up to 25. But I'm only subscribed to five threads - is it OK if I leave it at 25?

Deb, I'm like you. I just can't focus when I have that many on the page. Twenty is about as high as I can go. So I'm setting my refresh to zero and only subscribing to the ones I always read and generally trying to concentrate on some of the other helpful stuff instead.