Old threads

[Sarushka]

Maybe I'm being silly, but part of me wouldn't want to lose ALL of those thank yous. We're such a polite group of folks in general, and deleting all that would change the character of the boards to a certain extent.

[Teddy]

Whats your idea?

[Sarushka]

Well, in this case, I don't have an idea of how to manage the situation.

I know the "wow" and "thank you" posts really don't contribute any useful information, but it pleases me to see people being appreciative and polite with one another.

I guess it's just another instance of "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

[grandduchessella]

I agree that those posts take up space but I also agree with Sarushka that it adds a bit of civility. I know that if I spend a lot of time trying to fill a request for somebody, for instance, I don't mind a thank-you.   What I try to do when thanking someone is try to make it part of a post rather than the whole thing--starting with a 'thank you' and then adding a photo or a bit of information or something.

[Forum Admin]

After much research and time with the technical 'guru', it turns out the number of postings has nothing to do with the slowness of the forum.The software uses a language called "perl", which is highly memory intensive.  When we have about fifty, sixty, or more users at one time, the demand on server memory approaches 100% which slows things down to a crawl. We are looking at some way to transfer the existing forum to a different software that is not as memory intensive.

Just fyi Teddy, the other day I spent THREE hours just eliminating old "moved" notices. In three hours I managed to clear about one page of them. That's how long it takes.  What  you propose to do, even if I agreed would take something on the order of one person working eight hours a day working seven days a week for about two months to accomplish.

[Margarita Markovna]

Dear FA,

I'm a bored student on summer break. If you need someone to delete the moved notices, I'm available.

[Teddy]

But what makes a page slow, is all those photographs. I love to see them, but maybe its an idea, to make them a little bit smaller and re-place the same photo on the same place.

[Sarushka]

But what makes a page slow, is all those photographs. I love to see them, but maybe its an idea, to make them a little bit smaller and re-place the same photo on the same place.

I think the photos don't slow down the forum itself, but they may slow down some users' computers, depending on their internet connection.

I believe only the original posters can modify the size of the photos they've posted through their photobucket/imageshack accounts. Since we can only modify our posts for a few days, it's realy not possible for us to go back through our posts and shrink the photos. FA & the mods could probably alter the photos into links, but there are so many pictures here, it would take MONTHS of work. Most people are now posting cliackable thumbnails, which helps immensely.

[Alixz]

Or replace the photo with just a link to that photo.  Sometimes, I don't even get a photo. just a box with a "x" in it.  By the was FA, I don't get your avatar anymore, just that box with the 'x'.

Don't get me wrong, I love the photos.

As to the length of time it takes to remove or move things, if you would appoint a number of "trusted" members, the time would be cut by a great deal.  You alread have Teddy and Ritka and me, volunteering.  I'm sure there are many more who would like to help. (I am assuming here that you "trust" us.)

You could give us certain threads to work on and clear directions of what we can and can not do.  We would be glad to help out.  Then when we are done, take away our 'mod' priviledges and we go back to normal everyday members.

[grandduchessella]

Yes, it doesn't slow down the Forum itself--it can just make it extremely slow for those with dial-up or slower connections. This is why there were guidelines in place about the size and number of photos per post.

With the new server, I've noticed that if you quote a photo, it just quotes the link so you can click on it to see the picture, but the picture itself doesn't show up in the quotes. This helps a great deal.

[TampaBay]

I request all the old Windsor threads dealing with jewelry be re-opened.  It will be impossible to duplicate those threads.  It took months to find all those photographs.  Jewelry, which is an importatnt part of royalty, can only be studied and enjoyed through photographs.

I have never had any problem with slowness on the AP Forum. Then again I have high-speed broad may internet connections both at home and at work.

TampaBay

[Forum Admin]

It has nothing to do with the speed of the forum.  For some reason those Windsor threads just can't be opened with the upgraded version of the software. Even the people who wrote the software are stumped as to why.  Their only explanation is that our forum is just much larger than they ever expected anyone would be running.

Sorry, but as I've said before, if there is something specific you need from those threads, you can write me and I can copy it out of the archived old forum for you.  Thats the best we can do right now.

FA

[Tania]

Dear Esteemed FA,

Your best is always more than your best, and we are all genuinely appreciative of all you offer and do !
Thank you !

Tatiana+

[Angie_H]

I think the older threads are good to have to catch up on things and they're great for the newer people who have a question that has been answered already, B4 you could just post the link to the thread where the answer to their question is. Right now we're not able to do that anymore.  :-/ So for now I guess we just keep crossing our fingers, toes & eyes that they'll be back up eventually.

[Sarushka]

I think the older threads are good to have to catch up on things and they're great for the newer people who have a question that has been answered already, B4 you could just post the link to the thread where the answer to their question is. Right now we're not able to do that anymore.  :-/  

Actually, you can still do this (except with the Windsor threads, apparently). You just have to post the link to the thread's location on the NEW forum. It's only if you click on a link to a thread in the old forum that it won't work. If I'm understanding correctly, when the old forum goes online as read-only, we should even be able to access old threads via the old links.