PbP subforums merge

[Tengu_temp]

What is the point in merging Alpha, Beta and Gamma to make the forum eat less memory, but at the same time creating a new subforum in Arts & Crafts for fan webcomics? Not only do these two choices contradict each other, it's also more of a hassle to keep up with several PbP games at once now as not having a post in several hours is enough for a game to fall to the third page.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

What is the point in merging Alpha, Beta and Gamma to make the forum eat less memory, but at the same time creating a new subforum in Arts & Crafts for fan webcomics? Not only do these two choices contradict each other, it's also more of a hassle to keep up with several PbP games at once now as not having a post in several hours is enough for a game to fall to the third page.
Well, for one, the net change is still two fewer subforums.

Second, the general load and traffic patterns of the affected forums may change how the extra overhead of additional subforums is applied. It seems that the orginizational benefit was deemed to be worth any additional CPU cost the extra subforum would have.

[Zherog]

... it's also more of a hassle to keep up with several PbP games at once now as not having a post in several hours is enough for a game to fall to the third page.

Subscribe to the threads you need to keep track of. That'll make it much easier to find them, and to see when somebody posts.

[Shades of Gray]

The fan comics change was most likely because of the huge boom of webcomics. It was proposed during the last boom, but was turned down. There are enough webcomics to fill two pages now, so they decided to separate if from A+C. Speaking from an Avid Arts and craftser's perspective, the number of stickies, plus the surplus of comics made it so that there was maybe two or three non-comic threads on the first page.

[Cubey]

Subscribe to the threads you need to keep track of. That'll make it much easier to find them, and to see when somebody posts.

I had a player who seriously lagged behind in her posting. That is because she subscribed to my gaming thread instead of checking manually, and for some reason she didn't always receive a notification when the thread was updated.
So, whether it was the fault of her account or the forum, subscription was not a reliable option in this case.

[Rawhide]

It's simple. The fancomic forum was not created to help the server but the users.


I had a player who seriously lagged behind in her posting. That is because she subscribed to my gaming thread instead of checking manually, and for some reason she didn't always receive a notification when the thread was updated.
So, whether it was the fault of her account or the forum, subscription was not a reliable option in this case.

Only one email will be sent until you view the thread while logged in, or you can choose a daily update (single email). You can view all subscribed threads in your user CP and you can subscribe to threads without email notification.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Yeah, my e-mail inbox is cluttered enough, so I never use notifications. Use the CP. And not the CP main page, since that only shows you if there's "New" posts and the "New" rating can glitch out depending on your cookies. Go to the "Quick Links" toolbar and check the "Subscribed Threads" page. Then you can check directly what the last post was. All without waiting for an e-mail or sifting through a forum main page.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Yeah, my e-mail inbox is cluttered enough, so I never use notifications. Use the CP. And not the CP main page, since that only shows you if there's "New" posts and the "New" rating can glitch out depending on your cookies. Go to the "Quick Links" toolbar and check the "Subscribed Threads" page. Then you can check directly what the last post was. All without waiting for an e-mail or sifting through a forum main page.

[Zherog]

I don't use notifications, either. But it's a great way to keep track of threads that interest you but might not always be on the first page. For example, I organize and run a character-creation contest over on the WotC forums. I subscribe to the "master" thread, which gets updated once every six weeks or so with new information. When I need to update, I don't have to go digging through dozens of pages of threads; I just go to my User CP and click the link.

[The Giant]

What is the point in merging Alpha, Beta and Gamma to make the forum eat less memory, but at the same time creating a new subforum in Arts & Crafts for fan webcomics? Not only do these two choices contradict each other, it's also more of a hassle to keep up with several PbP games at once now as not having a post in several hours is enough for a game to fall to the third page.

You misunderstand the order of operations here. We reduced the number of boards partly because we had pre-existing plans to create a Fan Comic subforum. I've wanted to add one for the last year or so, but did not want to tax the server overly. The board reorganization gave me the ability to add it while still maintaining a net reduction in boards.

Also, note that we lost a grand total of 7 boards - Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Comic Books, Gaming Articles, GITP Products, and Design Contests, with an eighth (Tears of Blood) soon to follow. We only added one, so far. So it was still a major net gain in server performance, and it was not intended to single out players of PbP games.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I had a player who seriously lagged behind in her posting. That is because she subscribed to my gaming thread instead of checking manually, and for some reason she didn't always receive a notification when the thread was updated.
So, whether it was the fault of her account or the forum, subscription was not a reliable option in this case.Bookmarks. All the accuracy of manual checking, none of the digging through pages of threads. Although you can't automatically go to the last post/page this way.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Bookmarks. All the accuracy of manual checking, none of the digging through pages of threads. Although you can't automatically go to the last post/page this way.

Oh, but you can.

Try 'http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=the thread number of the thread you want', and it will take you directly to the newest post.