Right number of pages for a thread

[Whiskers]

I'd like to see threads the size of the Elric Movie thread(s) get below 50. The concern is that when you have an active thread that size, the datbase does a lot of screaming. And as the thread grows in posts, the scream will turn into a howl that could rattle our system.

I'd like to get some feed back from everyone. We could get a real advantage here by finding what everyone feels is the optimum size. My expectation is that I can manage locking and restarting a thread when we hit 20 pages of posts or about 300 posts. Please write your thoughts and vote in the poll so we can find where people feel the optimum number should be. In a perfect world, we could decide for ourselves, but this portal just doesn't have the mechanism for dealing with it.

[L'Etranger]

Yes, sounds like something we should discuss. "Leafing" through longer threads is often no fun, so that one could limit their length indeed. Maybe 30 is a could number, but check with your astrologist or kabbalist first ...
However, how's quoting" done then if you want to refer to something written a little while ago in a locked thread? You can only go copy-pasting then obviously, or am I wrong?
The old thread remains accessible, but, Berry, perhaps you can do something that both old and new thread stay together "geographically", so that one needn't search for it much. Or give it a kind of "sticky" status. You're the magician here and will surely find a way.

29 is a nice number. Why should everything be so blooming logical, eh?

[Mikey_C]

I'm happy to go with the technocrats... :)

[DeeCrowSeer]

Well, I would say 23 posts, but that's just the Discordian in me.

I agree about the horrors of looking back through so many pages. Of course, when threads wander off-topic, it rather exacerbates the problem, but (short of actually instating the Topic Police joked about in other threads) that can't really be helped. As L'Etranger points out, there would be a problem with quoting of course. But, then no system would be perfect, and we probably have to think of the technical limitations (or optimum conditions) first and foremost.

[L'Etranger]

23, eh? Illuminati and other secret societies, eh?

[TheEighthSon]

Well a site/forum I've started visiting which uses this forum software (or at least looks like it does, but I dunno 'bout the hardware side of it...) has a Thread of the Gods for spam related purposes which is currently on 1625 pages and 15 posts a page, giving a grand total of

DA-D-D-DAAAAA

24375 posts and still growing!!!

I've only read maybe the last twenty for curiosity's sake, but hey... it's the Thread of the Gods!!!

There's a link here
http://forum.blades-uk.com/viewforum...b0c1264ace485e
but if ya want me to remove it I will...

So, all in all I'd say an unlimited amount of posts!!! Go on, push the boat out, you know you wanna!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Or 23, whichever...

[Whiskers]

However, how's quoting" done then if you want to refer to something written a little while ago in a locked thread?

How deep does the usual visitor quote from? If the thread is locked, I suspect that a reader will want to know what The Cosmic Balance has to say, since it'll get the last word in a locked thread.

You can only go copy-pasting then obviously, or am I wrong?

That's what you'd have to do, and I feel it is predictible that people will not adopt the practice and those threads would be hanging around, indexed by Google and friends. Did you hear that Google doubled their pages from 4 billion to 8 billion indexed pages?

Every locked thread will have a pointer to the new thread, but we'll have a sticky index thread that lists all of the Elric Movie threads in a chain, listed oldest to newest.

[Whiskers]

ELRIC MOVIE THREAD INDEX

[broken link]

[Grey Mouser]

I voted for 30 or less. I've seen it on other forums where famous or classic threads will get archived in a different section. Perhaps you could have a new area called the Scrapyard of Lost Thoughts or something to archive/tidy the old really popular threads when they get oversized. In all the forums I've ever been to I've never seen any threads grow as large as some of the ones here, especially the Elric movie one. If the movie is such a hot topic now just imagine how hot it will become when the film comes out! :)

[ipssissimus]

Twenty-thirty is a decent quantity. And if I could make a suggestion: how about subdividing the Elric Movie thread into sub-forums? Currently the mass of posts means it's difficult to navigate, and various discussions cut across each other. I would find it useful if movie forums were structured by category such as:

Suggested actors, actresses
Directors,
Art direction
Script
Soundtrack

etc.

[steeltsar]

20-30 threads. I say 26, ie 2x13. (I like 13. I was born Friday 13th.)
The thing with long threads as several have said is the plodding tedium of wading through page after page after page...
I wonder if some kind of search engine, perhaps of a Booleian (??sp??) sort to help with fuzzy searches where you don't quite know what it IS but want to narrow down the possibilities, can be instituted. Doubtless not.... ? xxx

[Poetgrrl]

10 or fewer pages. i can get through them quicker if i haven't been following the thread from its' first post.

but even if you leave it the way it is now, it wouldn't be a problem, either.

[mordenkainen]

Berry I think you should do whatever makes it easier for you or the HW/SW you dispose of to administrate the site. You're doing an incredible work here for free, I think we can cope with the inconveniences of browsing through the threads, however you organise them. My preference, anyway, would be 20 pages or so.

[steeltsar]

On my so-far brief acquaintance with this site, I unreservedly second mordenkainen's sentiments about the job you're doing. xxx

[Whiskers]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm blushing. :)

The sub forum thing has potential, though I'm not ready to throw into that. A search engine already exits.

I'll think about this for a while. Could be a long while.