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View Full Version : Thread Purge is Upcoming!



Forum Staff
2009-01-25, 08:20 AM
In order to improve server performance, we are announcing an upcoming purge of all threads in the Gaming (d20 and RPG) forum where the last post was earlier than December 31st, 2006. The purge is expected on or shortly after February 1st, 2009.

If there is any thread where you wish to retain the information, we suggest you copy the relevant portions to your hard drive. Note however that this is NOT an excuse to bump old threads in order to keep them from being deleted; any Thread Necromancy between now and the purging will earn an infraction.

This will not affect the Homebrew (d20 and RPG) forum.

(Note also that this will also result in reducing the number of posts made for most users.)

Matthew
2009-01-25, 08:39 AM
Yikes! Sounds like I am going to get level drained! :smallbiggrin:

Spiryt
2009-01-25, 08:41 AM
My precious posts! :smalleek:

Fortunately, there's not so many of them before 2007, let alone any precious information in them.

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-25, 08:50 AM
Holy crap!

Is the Homebrew forum among those to be purged?

Forum Staff
2009-01-25, 09:00 AM
Holy crap!

Is the Homebrew forum among those to be purged?

No, Homebrew will be left untouched. This is due to the fact that 99% of Homebrew threads are presenting a single custom piece of game design that has been worked on at length, as opposed to a more of-the-moment discussion of gaming in general. We figure it is better to preserve the threads that are most likely to need to be referred to in the future.

BobVosh
2009-01-25, 09:04 AM
Oh no, my precious reading material at work :(

Although thank god for better loading times on the forums :D

Anyway, will there be a long down time, or is it assumed to be very quick going?

Om
2009-01-25, 09:40 AM
Yikes! Sounds like I am going to get level drained! :smallbiggrin:Better start saving those Real World threads... although I wonder if anyone ever reads back through those!

Hmmm... if anyone had time (a lot of time) this would be a good chance to go through those threads and build a database of the questions/answers that have been posed through the years

The Giant
2009-01-25, 09:43 AM
Better start saving those Real World threads... although I wonder if anyone ever reads back through those!

Hmmm... if anyone had time (a lot of time) this would be a good chance to go through those threads and build a database of the questions/answers that have been posed through the years

We will likely save threads that are earlier versions of current stickied threads: the Real-World Q&A and the RAW Q&A threads are at the top of that list. However, it's still probably a good idea to copy them if you want to save them, since we may miss them if their thread titles aren't 100% easy to find.

Renegade Paladin
2009-01-25, 09:46 AM
Anyway, will there be a long down time, or is it assumed to be very quick going?
I can't answer for the staff, since my board runs on phpBB rather than vBulletin, but purging threads shouldn't require any downtime at all. If this board software is like the one I use, then there's a setting in the administration panel that instructs a forum to prune all posts that have gone a certain amount of time without being posted in. Just set that, and you're done.

Eldariel
2009-01-25, 10:26 AM
Hmm, this means that Logic Ninja's Being Batman-guide would get axed. I do have it on my HD, but I'd need to find him to get a permission to repost it.

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-25, 10:36 AM
Hmm, this means that Logic Ninja's Being Batman-guide would get axed. I do have it on my HD, but I'd need to find him to get a permission to repost it.

He's a regular on RPGnet.

Matthew
2009-01-25, 10:37 AM
Better start saving those Real World threads... although I wonder if anyone ever reads back through those!

Hmmm... if anyone had time (a lot of time) this would be a good chance to go through those threads and build a database of the questions/answers that have been posed through the years

Too true. I have been back through those threads on several occasions and they are a nightmare to navigate. Zapping them into a hypertexted pdf would be a fantastic boon, but I doubt I will have the time before the purge. I seem to recall that it is possible to "download" threads on some forums. Have to explore the options here.

[edit] Looks like I can put about forty posts at a time into a text file via the printing options, or save them as archived webpages, but endless formatting then follows trying to put them into a word document and then converting to a pdf. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to save all the data, though.

Nerd-o-rama
2009-01-25, 03:28 PM
Hmph. And I just got to Titan, too. Oh well.

Deth Muncher
2009-01-25, 05:13 PM
Will we, perchance, be able to repost some of the more pertinent guides? My thoughts being TLN's Batman guide and Solo's Sorceror guide, but the satirical guides like Kurald Galain's works come to mind as well.

kamikasei
2009-01-25, 05:56 PM
I wonder if a "please keep these threads" nomination/vote would be doable. I'm thinking specifically for threads like, as mentioned, the famous guides, things that would be liable to be linked to from outside the site, references and resources (rather than simple discussions). It'd be good to avoid breaking all the links out there to TLN's guide, for example (even though reposting it would probably make it easily reachable via Google for the curious).

Fixer
2009-01-25, 07:54 PM
I would think, for the old posts that people REALLY like, it would be better to copy the information and update it to be more pertinent. If the people allowed that.

Would that be allowed?

Shhalahr Windrider
2009-01-26, 02:22 PM
Now, the board software change was October 2006, right? I know I saved all the threads I wanted then, because there was some doubt as to how well the old threads would be imported to the new system. So in that case, I really only have to keep an eye out for threads from November and December 2006.

My most prolific posting was before 2007, too. So I'm gonna lose a lot of my footprints. Ah, well. Footprints aren't supposed to linger in the sand.

Kizara
2009-01-27, 03:43 AM
Great idea, hope it gets the result you are seeking.

Matthew
2009-01-27, 09:33 AM
For ease of locating, here are the previous Real World Weapons and Armour Threads:

Mark I (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24294)
Mark II (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23290)
Mark III (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21318)
Mark IV (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18302)

[edit] I have archived threads I-III.

Charity
2009-01-27, 07:51 PM
Hmph. And I just got to Titan, too. Oh well.

Been there done that... Oooo Maybe I'll get back to bugbear... or bugging Raw about being a bugbear.

Aw crap I'm gonna have to save TLN GTBB arn't I...

_Zoot_
2009-01-28, 02:10 AM
is there a good way to save the threads that we want to keep?

Because copying them all to Word would take a long time.......

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-28, 02:13 AM
Ctrl+S?

give it up, ladies and gentlemen, for log--log--LOGORRHEA!

_Zoot_
2009-01-28, 05:21 AM
Ctrl+S?

give it up, ladies and gentlemen, for log--log--LOGORRHEA!

i don't think it worked, it seems to have just saved all the pictures on the page.... clap, clap, clap

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-28, 05:26 AM
i don't think it worked, it seems to have just saved all the pictures on the page.... clap, clap, clap

:confused:

... weeeeird. It's worked just fine on every browser and computer I've ever used. Are you one o' them communists? Or a Mac user?

Shhalahr Windrider
2009-01-28, 09:44 AM
If you go to the archive linked at the very very bottom of a forum page, you can get stripped-down text-only copies of the thread where the entire thread is displayed on a single page. You can save a copy of that.

monty
2009-01-28, 11:18 AM
Been there done that... Oooo Maybe I'll get back to bugbear... or bugging Raw about being a bugbear.

Aw crap I'm gonna have to save TLN GTBB arn't I...

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19085
Last post 07-12-2007. Problem solved.

Inyssius Tor
2009-01-28, 01:52 PM
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19085
Last post 07-12-2007. Problem solved.

Perfect! Ha! Thank you, necromancy, you've solved everything!

grinner666
2009-01-28, 03:37 PM
Thank the Gawds for this decision.

Why not go whole hog and do the same thing with EVERY forum? It may only be because I've only been a member since 2006, but I can't see any reason to keep posts three or more years old on the server that aren't legitimately unique works of the gaming art ... it seems a true waste of available server space.

And frankly, if I get another "Network Timeout" message, without any hope of a resolution, I may very well go berserk. With a chainsaw.

:smallwink:

Shhalahr Windrider
2009-01-28, 10:18 PM
Why not go whole hog and do the same thing with EVERY forum?
They are doing it in other forums. Though some have different cutoff dates. The Play by Post forums, for example cut off at December 31, 2007.

Bayar
2009-01-29, 06:26 AM
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19085
Last post 07-12-2007. Problem solved.

I am still saving them for posterity. I am saving the "Thing's Im not allowed to do while gaming" thread too...for my own ideas :smallbiggrin:

TheSteelRat
2009-01-31, 10:45 PM
While this seems to have been addressed by previous posters, I too wanted to echo the desire to keep the distilled awesomeness that was the Things I'm Not Allowed to Do While Gaming (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29508) Thread.

edit: It would seem that the last post was 11-29-2007, 05:08 PM. Made almost a year of posting...

monty
2009-01-31, 10:47 PM
I tried to read that whole thing once. Made it to around page 50 or so. Then my computer committed suicide, so I lost my place, and I never got around to finding it again.

Renegade Paladin
2009-02-06, 02:20 PM
You know, I have to wonder if this will really do anything, since getting rid of content on the server does not significantly reduce traffic, and by my understanding the problem is bandwidth, not server space. However, since it's already done, I suppose it's a little late to point that out.

kamikasei
2009-02-06, 02:48 PM
by my understanding the problem is bandwidth, not server space.

I don't recall ever getting a 503 here. Apparently the problem is neither bandwidth nor server space, but server load, and having fewer threads organized into fewer forums in its database makes it easier for the server to serve more people simultaneously.

monty
2009-02-06, 04:34 PM
You know, I have to wonder if this will really do anything, since getting rid of content on the server does not significantly reduce traffic, and by my understanding the problem is bandwidth, not server space. However, since it's already done, I suppose it's a little late to point that out.

I haven't noticed any significant improvement (ironically [well, not technically, but whatever], it took several minutes to load this thread). So the problem may indeed be elsewhere, unless it's just me.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2009-02-15, 04:41 PM
Yikes! Sounds like I am going to get level drained! :smallbiggrin:

You will always be a Troll in my eyes Matthew! :smallamused:

Matthew
2009-02-17, 03:24 PM
You will always be a Troll in my eyes Matthew! :smallamused:

Heh, heh, and thee an eye tyrant...

Speaking of Trolls, my fighter (Talric) and some of his companions (Mablir, Greggery, Rama, and Suhail) recently "billy goat gruffed" one in PapersAndPaycheck's play by post AD&D game (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=34581); he was trying to make off with one of our clerics!

Zeta Kai
2009-05-10, 09:41 PM
I think that this can be safely un-Stickied. No one has posted here in months, & the thread is largely academic now.

hobbes1020
2009-06-25, 11:40 PM
I completely agree.

indago85
2009-08-27, 05:59 PM
:smallfurious:y doesn't any 1 make a roleplaying thread:smallfurious:

Elfin
2009-08-27, 06:29 PM
Check the "Play by Post" section of the forum.