In the music thread to archive it and free space for us to have more room for other parts in the forum. If you think about it sometimes it would cut down on duplicate posts. For instance in the word thread you could start fresh. Usually they try to notify the OP of the thread so they can start a new one. My advice is find out who that is and PM them when the old thread has been closed or just before the 500 posts! Whats unique to us at Political Forum is that in most cases the individuals of the respective threads like Music and the, Word Thread, Smarties Bar are maintained by the same OP. And we respect that person as the originator and we show or support by recognizing them as the OP. Thanks Lisa.
It's an effort by the mods to alleviate some of the issues that have continued to plague this website due to performance issues.
As Todd said, we close threads that are over 500 posts to alleviate some of the issues the site has been having. I believe it has to do with the stress a large thread adds to the database server. We have members here who are very knowledgeable on the subject. Far better than I am to explain how this works. When we close a thread for post count reasons normally one will appear to replace the one we closed. I hope that helps explain it, Lisa.
If you are unsure how to start a prt 2 or 3 etc I will help just PM me and I can move the last few posts into a new thread so discussions can continue
It's okay...I just thought it was silly to shut down a thread that people were enjoying. What do you mean to "free space"?
Yeah.....thanks. This network has been wonky....I get kicked off and have to sign in again.....also, lots of times in the past 2 weeks, it's been down.
So limiting threads so they can be archived takes up less space. The threads we are in now are displayed on the current pages and if we limit them in size it also has the effect of not taking up server space for extended periods of time- like keeping stuff around no one will go back and read. There is no reason to keep a bunch of stuff here we don't look at. I also suspect there is a time out for members logged in, you get booted if your inactive - thats another trick to help "free space". Why is space so valuable? The reason is simple less space is less costly to the site owner. The next step for Political Forum would be to update the software and to get bigger and better hosting for the site. All of which would cost more and be expensive to maintain. My guess is they don't want to expand beyond what they have now. So we are limited on space and we constantly struggle to keep the forum at the size and growth it is now. Personally I think the issues are by design not default. Why else would it go on for so long? I have been here over a year it has yet to change.