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linden rathenGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
id like to say that this **is** a reaction to various posts on social chat, and would like to voice my opinion here in as an adult manner as i can manage

firstly i fail (slightly) to see many of the arguments against post whoring - the bandwidth argument especailly correct me if im wrong but ultimatly the bandwidth for the actual forums will not be exessivly affected by the addition of a post - even several 1000 posts - i mean whats the size of a post? a matter of Kb if that even 1000 of those is only 10Mb and while i know there are several hundred thousand posts that still does not even begin to touch the kind of bandwidth a site like this runs on.

on a similar vein arguing that pm's should be used will not save bandwidth - the messages are still stored though pm's should be used for other reasons - such as basically personal conversations

i agree that repeated posting is a waste of space and makes many threads unreadable - although i am guilty of doing this on occasion - so does having ream upon ream of people exactly the same thing

its often said that post whores take up a lot of the bandwidth space *but* as far as i can see at least they tend to say something new. so many otherwise interesting discussions and topics get flooded by people repeating the same points.

and i release im probably going to get accused of flamming for this. accused of being an idiot but seriously - how much damage does a silly thread do? ok threads started for the hell of having a thread are a waste, so tell a mod and have it deleted. but dont just yell at people who post a lot. try making a thread and then keep people on topic - its not just the mods who can moderate a forum - if you have one keep the conversation going and change the direction

but if you have a forum called social chat - dont you think people will?

ok so thats the end of this and i know it sounds like a rant so please take whats said with a pinch of salt and not as a personal insult

also any PM's asking for this to me removed etc (or just general insults) please head - post whore - so i know and for my own amusment

finally where do you fall?

back


SNOOPoiCarpal \'Tunnel
3,380 posts
Location: At the bottom of the garden with the fairies...


Posted:
i am a post whore. a terrible one. but i get involved with many different conversations with different people in different threads. ubblol

posting things is not a bad thing.

i agree fully with Linden. if you have a forum called social chat people are gonna chat.

this thread may be taken as an excuse to post-whore a little more. However form my point of view it's a good thing. sometimes i think i have more friends online than off it. and how are we to talk to our friends if we do not post? yes we can pm them, but can we have a three way (or more) conversation through pm's? we can't. so we have to post.

i think that people should stick to the topic that they are posting on. but lets have a little fun bounce

THWACK!!!!
Liz_Ard: Ouch!
SNOOPoi: Thats just not the sound of someone doing it right!


SeyeSILVER Member
Geek
1,261 posts
Location: Manchester, UK


Posted:
Ok, well as someone thats been hosting fora (latin rather than standard wink ) for years I can partly field this one.



The actual bandwidth taken up by a single post is far more than the space it takes up on the database (which is usually less than 1kb). The problem comes from the construction of pages (using text, images, scripts, templates, etc) and the running of quieries through the SQL database. This is then multiplied by thousends of 'clicks' on each post. (not just replies but every time you check for replies by hitting refresh)



Each time you click on a post the entire page must be loaded from all of its composite parts. Most people dont cache much (store very little from an opened page) so it must be loaded from ther server pretty much every time.



That said I do think that having a 'Social Chat' forum is asking for bandwidth to be wasted. (Just ask the guys at Gurn.net how much bandwidth their Random Ramblings forum eats!)



This is all making a huge assumption though. *Technically* not everyone pays for bandwith. Sometimes 'unlimited' bandwidth is included in server fee's or, if you have your own server, you might just be paying for the lease of the line monthly regardless of bandwidth.



I think what is more likely is that the mods (and a lot of other people) are sick of seeing posts that have ABSOLUTELY no point. Fair play, ask questions, get answers or post something funny. Theres no need for 'topicless topics' though. Well, not as many as have been appearing recently. Keep a couple of topics for random nonsense and dont make any new ones.



Hope that clears some of it up smile

linden rathenGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
thanks seye smile i defenitly agree with the pointless topics - if a thread has no point then why post it

its more - and this is just my impression - the objectin to threads that have a lot of one or two people talking - generally on topic but for a fair number of posts.

is this wrong or right? they advance a thread and amuse themselves. ok you may not what to read 2 pages of people's knowledge of each other but you dont have to.

so what is the main objection to this form of post whoring?

(see im even doing it here - but is this wrong?)

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DurbsBRONZE Member
Classically British
5,689 posts
Location: Epsom, Surrey, England


Posted:
Aye...

Maybe I'm just getting old. but a lot of the posts in chat these days do seem pretty pointless...
Yes, "Social Chat" is for un-involved topics, jokes, funny sites, whatever - but do people really have to post a topic saying "Gosh, look a cabbage" then everyone else jumps in posting as many smileys as they can?
This isn't even chat - it's just, well, [censored] (quite frankly).

Yes, it's a community - so yes, you want to get to know people on here via posts. But isn't that what peoples introduction threads are for? If you want to chat-chat, use the chat room. If you want 4-way conversations, use MSN Messenger.

I've always thought of "Social Chat" as a place to go get some light relief after plodding through a technical poi move thread, chucking my 2 cents into a political thread in "Social Discussion" and talking crap in an introduction or 4.
Recently however, I've never even thought of looking into it - there's never anything worth checking out there. And if there is, it's surrounded by threads along the lines of "Ooooh, I'm mad me, look I can start a mental thread about sweet F.A".

To put it non-bluntly - these boards are for the community. Everyone on HoP uses them, not just a select few of people wanting to post crap. Apart from all the bandwidth stuff, the very fact that so many people have been posting saying "Please stop all the random crap threads" would suggest they're not welcome. Frankly, that should be enough of a reason for not posting these kind of threads.

Go with the majority guys...

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude


SeyeSILVER Member
Geek
1,261 posts
Location: Manchester, UK


Posted:
Linden - That I am not really sure about.



Its up to the Admins and Mods of the site what they deem 'worth posting' and what they dont. I suppose they see that as chat for the chat room and not the forum.



I think (although its not my call) its just the excessive number of topics that are started that end up as a chat between the same few people about the same things that they chatted about in their last few topics.



Of all the messageboards I've ever used (and its been a lot) HOP is the most intentionally ordered one. Its just been getting a bit messy of late. Its like inviting your friends round and asking them to keep the place clean I guess.



smile

linden rathenGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
thats why i posted the poll durbs :P admitadly it'll probably be biased because of where ive posted it but nm

and like i said yes some of what is posted is just a page of smileys etc

so if you object why not change it

one of my main objections is that a lot of people just complain about post whoring and that there are no good threads

so why not start a good thread and keep it on topic?

as i see it there are several good threads on chat, a fair number of 'passing' threads - where people are just commenting on events in their lives and several crape threads

- what do you think is a good thread?

and what do you count as post whoring or a silly post (yes i got the ones about smileys) would you count the breeding thread as a stupid thread?

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onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
I very, very rarely look in 'chat' because I know there's unlikely to be anything of interest to me.

However, as a result of reading this thread I had a quick look to see what the issue was, and found this thread: -

[Old link]

which IMO, is a absolute waste of everyones time, and, if that's a good example of the kind of stuff that's appearing in chat, then I'm not surprised there's been complaints and mod intervention.

Apart from the bandwidth issue, there's also the fact that the vast majority of posters here are going to find threads like that annoying.

For those very few individuals who like threads like that, I'm sure there's plenty of other sites on the web that can cater to them; IMO, HOP shouldn't be one of them.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


linden rathenGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
dave - that thread was locked because of it and i agree that that thread is a waste of time and im ashamed to say i did post rubbish on there.



but having said that that is one thread - how many others did you find that bad? or that were that irrelevant?



and before this thread gets flooded can we move on from the "i go in chat and see posts of 1000 smileys" i think we've established that they are stupid



edit sorry if that last bits sounds a bit harse im just trying to stop what i see happen to a lot of threads in general which is lots of people posting the same thing - im curious to see if it will work smile
EDITED_BY: linden rathen (1123719013)

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Mr ChutneySILVER Member
Tosser
1,712 posts
Location: Bristol,UK


Posted:
ditto

I think there can be a problem of poiple not feeling established unless they have 1700 posts or something, thus teaming up with friends to build thread after thread of pointless threads in order to facilitate this end. I admit to actually being slight intimidated by poiple with thousands of posts the first time I met them at meets- of course I see now that its totally absurd- post numbers mean nothing, and are particularly irrelavent if not accumulated over several years.

As much as anything else- we should remember that there are moderators HAVING to trawl through thread after thread, trying to make our interraction with the boards as simple as possible- I know if were were a mod I'd be sick of pointless threads by now. By creating new aimless threads all the time the board is getting to the point where good information becomes lost due to the sheer weight of traffic- this will make the boards harder to navigate and could eventually put poiple off.

As mentioned before- if you want to chat- use MSN, use IRC, send PMs. If you want a forum wide discussion or chat, about SOMETHING in particular, use the relevant thread and follow the moderator guidelines that were thoughtfully and clearly written, and should be seen as terms and conditions for the use of the board.

linden rathenGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
out of interest - this is mainly directed at the mods - why do we have post counts?

this could solve some of the problems of people purposfully trying to reach certain numbers. also it removes the intimidation level

another problem is use of the forums. ideally (in my view) there would be no social chat and very little social disccusion as this would be kept for the chat room. forums would be used to post useful information. but ive seen this with forums and they die.

so its a question of balance.

in the last few days there have been 2 threads about postwhoring, well one about chatting in threads and another that got 'hijacked' (ok it wasnt really about anything).

so this is the real question

how much would you truthfully say that is posted in the forums is 100% rubbish and serves no purpose?

personally id say very little, you do see the occasional smiley heavy post and the occasional page of drivel. but post of what i see in the chat forum (where i lurk) is on topic - ok the topics may be silly and frviolous but people enjoy them. isnt that the aim of the chat forum.

or am i alone in this?

*shuts up and goes to bed wondering vaguly at the number of new posts on this tomorrow about smiley heavy threads*

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PeleBRONZE Member
the henna lady
6,193 posts
Location: WNY, USA


Posted:
Let's see...it wasn't one thread and it wasn't one complaint.

We, the mods, have been receiving several complaints privately recently about these threads, many of which are not in conversation format but merely people posting smilies.

There is an issue when it is two people going back and forth and posting life details because that is a private conversation and has no place on a public bb that is for everyone.

Yesterday alone I locked or deleted no less that 5 of the "useless" threads, several prior to yesterday and I also know that Flash Fire has done her fair share in the past couple of days.
We shouldn't be. Social Chat implies an active conversation between multiple people (social-multiple people and chat-conversation), not just posting continuous smilies or pointless statements.

Yes, every member is responsible in some way for making this bb what it is, but it also up to us Mods to make sure that rules are being followed, implemented or reinstated (as one recently was..about excessive use of smilies). That is what we are currently doing.

This bb is one of the best I have come across on the net, and sometimes it takes such actions to keep it as such.

Last I knew, and I could be wrong, Malcolm does not have unlimited bandwidth.

Post whoring tends to clutter the bb and make it less community oriented...and that is not what we want, nor what this sanctuary, or any part of it, is intended for.

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK


onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: linden rathen



another problem is use of the forums. ideally (in my view) there would be no social chat and very little social disccusion as this would be kept for the chat room. forums would be used to post useful information. but ive seen this with forums and they die.





A lot of us don't use chat rooms, don't want to use them, and much prefer the kind of interaction you get on a forum.

The forums can work very well- originally on HOP there was only one social section, this was split into 'Chat' and 'Discussion' because of what many saw as excessive inane posting.

Since that split, 'discussion' has certainly worked well, with very little 'off-topic' posting and a good level of self-moderation by the people posting there.

as for 'chat', like I said I don't really use it, but, there seems to be a fair bit of dissatisfaction which will probably lead to the issues being addressed.

Maybe someone should just set up a 'total inanity' thread in chat, where people can post irrelevant/nonsense stuff to their hearts content, on the understanding that they restrict it to that one thread?

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
Incidently, personally I'd love to see smilies removed from the board entirely- i use image blocking software when on HOP and the way it speeds up page loading really shows just how much bandwidth the smilies use up.

However, it's not something I'm going to particularly push for, as I know that the majority seem to think smilies are a really good idea.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


SeyeSILVER Member
Geek
1,261 posts
Location: Manchester, UK


Posted:
Written by: onewheeldave


Incidently, personally I'd love to see smilies removed from the board entirely- i use image blocking software when on HOP and the way it speeds up page loading really shows just how much bandwidth the smilies use up.



Smilies (or emoticons) are incredibly useful in text conversations.

They can mean the difference between someone reading a post and laughing or reading the same post and getting angry / crying etc.
I use them all the time, even in sms.

They also provide a good way of actually connecting with other posters emotionally. Remember the days of web chats before people even used text based ones? How many arguments did that cause!

Besides, you already have your solution.

TheBovrilMonkeySILVER Member
Liquid Cow
2,629 posts
Location: High Wycombe, England


Posted:
This is what I posted in the This Subject Is Unique And Meaningful And Im Not Using All Capitals thread...

Written by: me


It is indeed beyond the point of absurdity, I've seen people making 50 posts a day, most (if not all) of which are just a line or two long or filling with graemlins.
As has already been mentioned, the chatroom is the place for that - you don't even need to download anything to use it (although it's generally better if you get yourself an IRC client).

Also, alot of the repetative posts seem to be from people who know each other fairly well away from these forums and are online at the same times, so the chances are that an msn conversation isn't out of the question, that makes far more sense to me than posting a conversation here.

To put it more frankly, this is the social chat section, not the random gibberish section.





I still stand by this, if people are having a personal conversation with a small number of people, it'd be better off somewhere else, like on msn, or someone's intro thread.

I don't want to know if people are having bangers and mash for dinner, or the last time they cut their toenails. Yes, while I could just skip over those threads, when it becomes difficult to find the threads that I want to read because they're hidden in the depths of the post whore's playground, it gets incredably annoying.

As for the graemlins, I'm sure we used to have a limit on the numbers you could put in a single post. While I like the idea of a few graemlins to show you're just joking, I certainly wouldn't complain if this limit were put back in place.

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.


PeleBRONZE Member
the henna lady
6,193 posts
Location: WNY, USA


Posted:
I agree with the use of smilies....sometimes they can disarm things but recently there has been several threads of nothing but lines and lines of smilies. *That* is useless and as a result a limit on smilies per post has been reinstated (though it still allows for alot of smilies smile )

OWD...if you think it will help, start the inane thread. Maybe it will be a solution. *shrug*

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK


flash fireBRONZE Member
Sporadically Prodigal
2,758 posts
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia


Posted:
For me, it's not an issue of bandwidth. For me, it's more an issue of what the community is becoming....



You have no idea how long the bias & unprofessional side of flash fire has toyed with deleting some of those game threads, however, it's not about MY preference, or that of the other mods. It's about maintaing a sensible balance and not being dictatorial about things just because us mods have personal feelings. I think that it should be noted how fair we are in that regard.



Chat is chat. That's fine. All I ask is that people consider that this is an international website with hundreds of (hyper)active members. Leave threads open to anyone to join in - reduce the cliquey-ness and injokes and perhaps reserve that sort of stuff for irc, or even your intro thread.



Believe me, I understand the thrill of immediate gratification and being the centre of attention. Just cos it feels good doesn't mean we should indulge ourselves at every opportunity.



HOP is very tolerant, however it is a moderated site with all members agreeing to Terms & Conditions when they signed up.



I'd personally like to see a little more maturity on the boards, but I can't officially react when faced with immaturity. So, consider it a personal request that people have a think about what they're doing and how they're behaving from a long-term member of this site.

HoP Posting Guidelines
Is it the Truth?
Is it Fair to all concerned?
Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?
If you can answer YES to these 4 questions then you may post a reply.


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
I like smileys simply cos sometimes it can make a post look nicer and pretty like drapes ina house....ahem or also as i often get the problem that some emotion or sarcasm or even seriousness cannot be implied too well with words alone so maybe a smiley like this ubblol can make your intentions seem more obvious, or also sometimes if you want to make your point well known without discussion a simple ditto could suffice.



What i dislike most and this definatley coincides with what Durbs said is that Social Chat personally for me was somewhere where i could always unwind or just get away from technical stuff and go and find some sillyness like some silly website with some screaming guinea pigs or hear about the latest boy watch from that pervy doctor, but not anymore, i find despite my wants i steer away from chat cos i know I am gonna see 5-10 threads all from the same people about crap like 'i looked out my window today' and inside it says there i just thought i'd share that with you, originally people thought this was funny, but that was a few years ago im sure, now it seems like people are repeating this simply to try and 'fit in' or something.



And you can tell that in fact all this does is kill the thread, I have noticed threads that i have found fun and informative die and be buried simply cos 2 or 3 people have 'hijacked' it and had a 3 way conversation about what a conversation they had once or something, and suddenly all the people that were posting in that thread disappear never to return, and you can see this hijack simply by using that lovely mouse-wheel scroll up n down at speed and you just see them same 3 or so avatars flashing past your screen. It gets annoying and i just think i cant be bothered with this.



Well guys you dont need to do things like this or post the most amount of threads with sillyness in them to be cool or increase your 'HoP-ness' we all know you, we all love you even if u do piss us off at times wink





Let us all just enjoy each others company, add thought when needed, suggested or just downright shoved in there, just dont make it without point.



I love you all hug



Except you tongue

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: linden rathen


out of interest - this is mainly directed at the mods - why do we have post counts?

this could solve some of the problems of people purposfully trying to reach certain numbers. also it removes the intimidation level






I dont agree, true when i joined this forum and i saw all these much respected well talked about hoppers with 5000 or more posts i did think wow i cant wait to be that high, but i never thought oh im gonna go post randomly as much as i can to get there simply cos not only did it seem a bit pointless and i had a life to get on with (which ims till trying to do) but also i realised its through those posts thats what makes what i was strivig to become, its not the number, its going to meets, its chatting to people properly or creating clever and interesting threads or simply posting attractive things, thats what its about, ntohing to do with the number, look at Cantus, his post count is above 10,000 and i cant believe i have ever seen him post anything intellectual wink ubblol

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


Mint SauceBRONZE Member
veteran
1,453 posts
Location: Lancs England


Posted:
I think I will have to agree with will on the post count point when I first joined hop and even now to an extent I have a look at post count and date joined when reading a post about something technical kind of a sign of reassurance

Hummm I'm not explaining myself very well so I will use an example say someone had asked a question on how to do the weave and their where two replies but with different opinions I would generally trust the person who had been a member longer and usually with the higher post count. Kind of shows they have been about a bit and shows interest in the subject.

Hope this makes sense sorry if it is gibberish it is 6am and Iv been at work all night

I must put my hand up to the occasional rubbish post but in general I would agree social chat if full of crap that is not worth reading and any that are actually interesting or funny get lost onto dreaded page two as all the bumf fills up in front of it.

I personally think there are to many games and stuff one or two is ok but why so many who reads them any way

Some of them are actually a good idea the what do you know about the hopper above you is a great way of getting to know your fellow hoppers but Word Dis-Association Game WHY!!


Sorry I will shut up now
Wow I think this must be my longest post ever

before i met those lot i thought they'd be a bunch of dreadlocked hippies that smoked, set things on fire ,and drank a lot of tea but then when i met them....oh wait (PyroWill)


roarfireSILVER Member
comfortably numb
2,676 posts
Location: The countryside, Australia


Posted:
I think everyone is guilty of some unneccessary posts.

I certainly am. Especially when I was just new and eager to make new friends.

For instance: People these days have 1000 posts and they've only been here for 1 month or so. It's just crazy. I've been here for over a year and I'm not up to 1000 yet.

I used to really enjoy reading the posts in the social chat section....but in the last few months they've just been getting ridiculous.

The point is, is that post whoring is just downright annoying for most of us.

.All things are beautiful if we take the time to look.


LazyAngelGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
2,895 posts
Location: Cambridge UK


Posted:
ditto to what most people have said already about the fact that things have gone too far in Social Chat. I used to like posting in there occasionally, but now I just don't understand half the threads in there. It's made me feel a bit wierd about posting in any of the social sections.

Now I find I'd rather meet people at meets or speak to them in real life or even on e-mail than go posting on here. The sense of fun has been replaced by one of.... desperation? fanaticism? I even know as a result of this one lovely HoPper is feeling a bit wierd about the community and meeting the people, which is the last thing anyone wants!

Funny, initially I wanted to get a high post count, but lately I've been kind of proud of the fact that i've been on here for a year and have less than 600 posts, not to say I haven't posted the random rubbish myself.

I just think social chat should be more about empathy and fun than being a competition to see who can get the most posts. I think I remember Mags saying at Falmouth, 'It's about people not posts'.

Peace and Hugs to all.

Because ActiveAngel sounds like a feminine deodorant

Like sex, I'm much more interesting in real life than online.

'Be the change you want to see in the world around you' - Ghandi


MynciBRONZE Member
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom


Posted:
I agree with the fact that post whoring makes it intimidating for newbies to interact with a thread. but disagree on the idea that people should chat in chat rooms or MSN, a few of the people i know don't have MSN and some of the threads although chat roomesque involve people having a chat over a couple of days...not everybody is free at the same timeso people can enter their opinions in a non-chronological time frame

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.


=Flashpoint=SILVER Member
Pasta of Muppets
2,722 posts
Location: in the interwebs..., United Kingdom


Posted:
Indeed Mynci, but a series of smileys just to keep the conversation going?
I once heard a quote "The wisest person often speaks last" and to corrupt that a little, I would say that why post unless you have something to say? I've been on here a year, and am still under 1000, i think. I like to think that the love and respect i give to HoPpers, and I recieve in return has nothing to do with popularity and post counts, but the peeps that have something to say (for example i have wanted to meet OWD for some time and really get down to some serious philosophizing).
Cantus has the highest post count because he's been here a long time, lots of peeps know him, and he posts just one line with a very witty joke and usually a smiley to tell peeps he's just joking. He hasn't got respect from the community because he's posted 10000 posts in like 4 years, its because he's nice, funny, and a pretty spinner... Which, to be fair, goes for nearly all the peeps here, and i know for a fact it's true for ALL the HoPpers i've met...

Just to add, i very rarely post in Chat now, as i cant be bothered finding something witty in all the guff thats on pg1 wink

Love and hugs to y'all... hug

Where would we be without that graemlin?

ohmygodlaserbeamspewpewpew!
ubbrollsmileubbrollsmileubbrollsmileubbrollsmile


flidBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,136 posts
Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: linden

firstly i fail (slightly) to see many of the arguments against post whoring - the bandwidth argument especailly correct me if im wrong but ultimatly the bandwidth for the actual forums will not be exessivly affected by the addition of a post - even several 1000 posts - i mean whats the size of a post? a matter of Kb if that even 1000 of those is only 10Mb and while i know there are several hundred thousand posts that still does not even begin to touch the kind of bandwidth a site like this runs on.






I think you're confused as to the difference between bandwidth, diskspace and datebase performance. I'll try and put this into as laymen terms as possible:



A single post, say 1024 characters long may well take up 1k of physical space, which you're right, isn't a lot. A single post however when displayed will have a lot of extra data transfered in the form of the html and css that defines the page looks. Currently, this thread only has a few posts and 35,000 characters in total, but including html is approximately 175k in size.



Compare this to the chat web interface, which is designed with bandwidth saving in mind, and uses no more than 2k at any time on average. I'm not sure what price malcolm pays for bandwidth in NZ, but personally per Gb on a fast pipe in the UK (100mb full duplex) I pay 1 pound per gigabyte. That means that this thread if hosted on my server it would cost 0.0175 pence per hit. Doesn't sound like a lot, but do the math and you'll see how quickly it adds up. This money has to come from somewhere. Can you honestly say that you've chipped in towards the bandwidth bill?



Bandwidth isn't the only cost in running a forum, there's cpu cost too. Databases that are cheap/free arn't designed to be effieicent with millions of records. This forum uses MySQL, which from previous experience of adminstering/programming under starts to degrade significantly with over a few hundred thousand entries, getting real slow with over 5 million. Without having direct access to the database or doing a bit of coding that may piss malcolm off a bit (;)) I couldn't say how many entries we currently have, but i'd say a few million. The more posts we have the slower HoP will run, not significantly, but do we really need lots of crap? Ultimately when HoP gets slower, more expensive hardware needs to be bought to run it. Are you going to contribute?



Perhaps of equal importance, although it's good to move with the times, anyone new to HoP will hopefully notice that we have one of the best communities on the net. Lots of people from all countries and backgrounds making friendships which extend both on and offline (personally I've met about 100 people from HoP, the vast majority of whom i've gotten on with really well). People want to keep it the way it is, and you may notice that almost everyone with a problem about the recent increase in 'post whoring' are older members, those that are doing it newer members. Part of what makes HoP so cool is how inviting it is to new people, but please think before making yourself too comfortable somewhere new that you arn't treading on too many people's toes. Some people take things like forums really seriously, perhaps a little too much, and get really pissed off when new people move in and act like they own the place/challenging the existing status-quo. Whilst I don't take things that far, HoP's something that I'm happy to say is part of my life and I like it just the way it is/was.



Written by: linden

but if you have a forum called social chat - dont you think people will?






perhaps this is something that needs to be addressed. We can argue for ever that people should read forum rules before making posts, but hardly anyone has the common curtesy to do so. Perhaps the name should just be changed to Discussion, and Social Discussion to Indepth Discussion, or just ban people who break rules?

PyroWillGOLD Member
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom


Posted:
hug flid

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind

Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife

"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian


linden rathenGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK


Posted:
ok i know this is gunna sound harse but here i go - im gunna ignore half of what people have said as most of you have said the same thing so just use the ditto that has to be my pet peve on here so ive got that off my chest and ill leave it



thank you flid for the laymans terms explanation - after id posted that and id read a few posts it kinds twigged that i'd got the wrong idea.



and as ive said yes posts of smileys are pointless - the occasional one but ok when you have a thread of them its silly



and thank you pele for pointing out how many pointless threads have been removed - i mainly come on at the same time so miss them or just dont read them



flid i agree with what you say about stepping on toes. im probably guilty of this, and i appologise for it. but at the same time those that have been here longer perhaps should help the newbies adjust to maintain the status quo - like i said if you cant find a good thread on chat why not make one? *or* try and stear and exsisting one.



finally i would say part of the problem may just be the season - its summer - its a british summer which means its wet - a lot of the people in the chat are on school/uni holidays and so have more time and want to keep in contact with friends etc on here between meets. its not just coincidence that the number of posts per day in chat went up a lot near the start of august and was on the rise from mid may - thats when a lot of us finished school



edit one last bit thank you for keeping this interesting and worth while - i was slightly miffed that both threads on post whoring in the chat were locked before i could post my views on it smile so a big grouphug to all you wonderful people and many appologies for being a whiney snot nosed lil newbie tongue
EDITED_BY: linden rathen (1123797449)

back


[noodles]*Property of Pigeon Wigeon*
893 posts
Location: Locked In Pigeons Chimney


Posted:
Ok i'm fairly new to Hop but not to websites and forums. I moderate a reasonable sized and globally used forum with over 10,000 members and on that forum we have a team of 3 admins and about 10 moderators. We tend to take quite a strict outlook on spam and we have a post limit set up for members we feel are abusing the forums. One thing I have noticed with Hop is that there is a very relaxed atmosphere here, this is something that is lacking on many forums and I would hate for Hop to loose it but I do totally understand how the mods feel about having to trawl through pages and pages of c**p everyday. It takes a lot of time and usually that time is totally voluntary.
I don't think that it would be unfair to tighten up a little on the spammy threads in Social Chat but it has to be the right amount or the area will die out and that would be a shame as I know a lot of people, myself included, enjoy the relaxed and often quite silly atmosphere in there.
Possibly the addition of a few more moderators may lighten the load of general maintenence on the forum? Just a thought.

On the topic of the amount of space taken by the forums then possiblty a spring clean is required. I mean how many people actually look past page 10 of the social chat forum anyway? and there are like 300 odd pages?

Could somebody stop the room please... I'd like to get off


MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
Written by: linden rathen


out of interest - this is mainly directed at the mods - why do we have post counts?




I was about to ask that myself. I have...what...8000 posts or something? 9000? Lord knows.

Know why? I'm *OLD*. That's why.

Some boards use ranking systems like "newbie, lieutenant, veteran, addict, oh-my-god-get-a-freaking-life, etc." Post counting does help grant privileges, but it comes with its problems.

I think I can say that the vast majority of my posts are *good* posts. Yeah, I've done some time-wasting, too.

But maybe we should get rid of post counts.

Either way, I think we also need to count our blessings. We have a mostly functional board and community. We get very few trolls. We tend to get along well and have very few open, frank, fists-thrown battles. We have a fantastic vibe and I know that even if I get on a plane and fly all the way to Oztralia, I have good friends there waiting for me.

Sometiimes I think we lose sight of the good while trying to fix up the teensy loose ends.

We've got our problems, and in the end I don't really care what the mods/admins decide to do, as long as we're all still here. I love this place and I love the people. THAT'S what matters. hug

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


SeyeSILVER Member
Geek
1,261 posts
Location: Manchester, UK


Posted:
Flid - wasnt my answer about 'actual bandwidth consumption' good enough frown

**sits in the corner looking dejected**

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