Forum status - Important

[Ishmael]

The games database could maybe be hosted on another server, as a backup, if a volunteering host could be found. Like, when the main paged is down, users could use this backup database to look through the games posted on the site... or something...

[YOke]

Completed games could be a little more restricted.

If you are stuck: Hints
If you want to praise the game: On the download page or PM
If you have bugs to report: PM
The thread should be used by the author to list known bugs and new versions.

Also in Competitions and CL there are too many useless posts.

Or we could just move the forums to a dedicated server and keep doing that thing we do.

[Dan2552]

Completed games could be a little more restricted.

If you are stuck: Hints
If you want to praise the game: On the download page or PM
If you have bugs to report: PM
The thread should be used by the author to list known bugs and new versions.

Also in Competitions and CL there are too many useless posts.

Or we could just move the forums to a dedicated server and keep doing that thing we do.

i agree on this. i'd work very well for everyone - except PMs are still taking up bandwidth 


i was thinking more on the lines of AGS fan Forums which people can make/host - and there can be a big list of all the different forums. But then the community would be split up...

[TerranRich]

What about some kind of voluntary subscription? Like if we wanted to fully support AGS and the forums, then we would agree to pay a certain amount every month. I know I'd be willing to pay up to $15 a month for the forums, gladly. Multiply that by a hundred or so out of the 2-3,000 members, then you can afford to move the forums to a better, dedicated server, CJ, right? I'm sure less than 1/2% of the members would pay SOMEthing, if only $5 a month.

[sunshinegold]

Just want to say I'm happy the forum is back.Ã,  Appreciate you letting us know what happened.Ã,  Missed everyone so it shows how much we depend on one another.Ã,  Hope we are safe for a long time.

Are we going to get back the 'hints and tips'

[Scummbuddy]

QuantumRich, you've uncovered Chris's devious plan. Take down the forums for a while, and build up the anticipation of their return, plus cause everyone to realize how much they neeeeeed them. Then put up a small nominal donation area. He's feeding off it. Teh sicko.

[Rosie]

I'd be happy to PayPal a few dollars to keep the forums alive.

I would contribute to this great site also

[Kweepa]

Here are my thoughts on the future of the forums.
Any contribution towards the cost of hosting should be voluntary. Otherwise the forums will die.
I was worried that there might be an initial surge of donations, allowing the forums to grow larger, followed by a slow drop off in donations, causing a downtime. Boom and bust.
I was also worried that making paying more for the forums now could lead to problems later if the popularity of AGS dropped off a bit, but since it's a usage overload, that means less board visits makes the boards cheaper.
Someone other than CJ volunteering to host the forums for free is dangerous, as it leaves the safety of the forums in their hands. It may come from great intentions but who knows what might happen in that person's personal life.

So I guess what I'm saying is that as a contingency several people should be able to collect donations, pay for the webhosting, and maintain the site.

[Edwin Xie]

I've been waiting so long......I actually had to everything on my own now. Sorry to hear, I don't really have the money to donate...I don't know if there are any other better hosts though.

[Timosity]

Interesting, I've been offline for a bit so I guess I missed all this.

I say kick everyone off except kickme

[TerranRich]

I was worried that there might be an initial surge of donations, allowing the forums to grow larger, followed by a slow drop off in donations, causing a downtime. Boom and bust.

Hence my suggestion of a voluntary subscription. No extra benefits (because not everybody can pay, or is old enough to do so), just the knowledge that you're helping out the forums and CJ. And it wouldn't just be a one-time deal. A little bit in intervals might help out more than a lot only one time.

[SSH]

Ban everyone who features in a top-10 list would reduce the number of queries a great deal    I notice that now General Discussion is gone, I no longer feature in the "most threads created" top 10...

Rich's idea is good, I think that donators could still get a forum title, tho... like "Generous" or something

And CJ, I know you don't like taking money for AGS becuase of implied obligations, etc. but this would be donating purely for the forums...

[jrl2222]

QuantumRich, I don't think a voluntary subscription with no benefits at all will do to much. You may get a few people that pay for a short time but not many people won't pay if they can get the same thing for free. Yes I know they won't have any forums if they don't pay but most people won't look at it like that as long as the forums are up. I myself wouldn't mind seeing a couple banner adds on the forum pages. With all the people in here all the time it seems that would bring in a bit of money towards it at least.

Also maybe have $5 a month and you can have Avatars and sig file. No subscription and no sig files. You could also lock some parts of the forums unless you pay. The places that are open now minus maybe the tech forum could be free but you would get full access if you pay?

[Radiant]

Excuse me, but if CPU cycles are the main bottleneck here, wouldn't a serious pruning help in greatly reducing the database seek time?
Maybe some old threads could be archived as plain html, that also has less seek time. And of course maybe some old threads are no longer relevant.

[Darth Mandarb]

I noticed a few days before I left that the forums were down and I was beginning to panic!!

Then I got on a plane (I am in Las Vegas) and was unable to get online since monday.Ã,  When I finally found a computer here I was relieved to see they were back up.

I would be more than happy to contribute money to help move the forums to a dedicated server.Ã,  And as has been mentioned already it would NOT be in expectation of something, it would more be for feeding my adiction to this place

My blood pressure has now gone back to normal ...

[Janik]

How about removing/disabling some of the features of the board. Some of the the things of dubious use are:

- The upcoming birthdays in the main page
- Those IM/and the other icons below poster's avatars
- Maybe removing avatars entirely?
- Fewer smileys?

That's all I can see for now...
Oh BTW it looks like the search function doesn't work when you ask "Topic Subjects only"

Please try again. If you come back to this error screen, report the error to an administrator

[SSH]

Since every n00b asks the same questions on Beg Tech, I'm sure that forum can be greatly pruned. Also, I wonder how many queries are from guests vs members. Maybe guests could be restricted?

If threads were deleted instead of locked by mods, too. Or delete all locked threads over 2 weeks old.

Oh, and ban poop, who obviously hasn't read this thread

[Moox]

I would like to second that notion...

[LGM]

I think maybe the General Forum and Competitions Forum should be a perk to paying. That surely would keep many people away who are only interested in one topic, ask about it, then leave.

There definitely needs to be some excessive pruning:

Beginner's Tech:
TerranRich has written an excellent FAQ for the Beginners Forum... Maybe it should be made to encompass the answers to all of the most commonly asked questions... And we DO have a Knowledge Base, don't we? If there's a big FAW,Ã,  users then could be encouraged to ask their question in the regular Tech forum only after reading the manual, FAQ, and Knowledge Base carefully, or they could even go to #ags.

Game Announcements:
Games of MIA members, or games that haven't been updated in 6 months or so could be removed. I dunno CJ's policy on this.

Critic's Longue
I dunno how this would work.. But maybe old or finished works that need no further critique could be locked and/or deleted in the future.. And the last 5-10 pages could probably be deleted without fuss.

Hints and Tips
This would take more work than it's probably worth, but many tips could be consolidated into one post. Old posts again could be deleted.. Solved cases could be locked or summit like that.

General Discussion
This forum definitely needs a cutoff of the last 10 pages at the least. Its mostly outdated, useless information anyways. Someone COULD go through and gather all the interesting stuff and make an HTML out of it. I don't know...

I'm sure CJ has a plan already in the works, though, and whatever it is, it will be efficiently amazing.

(Perhaps stupid silly threads could be deleted instead of locked, to avoid an influx of people looking at it to see why it was locked in the first place.... Just a thought)

(Edit: And as it was pointed out below, these changes won't really help CPU load.. So let's just delete the member base and re-register! Muahaha! *ahem*

All kidding aside, we DO need a tougher registration method. If people like poop get in, we're obviously not doing something right here.

[Toefur]

Most of the things people are suggesting aren't related, or are insignificantly related at best, to anything to do with CPU usage.

Pages and pages of old threads and posts do not impact the CPU usage at all. If they are sitting there, in the thousands, and nobody accesses them then all they are doing is taking up disk space. They are not using the CPU, and they are not taking up any bandwidth.

Images, icons, birthdays, things like that are having no effect or not substantial effect on CPU usage.

You can change all that, but if you still have the same amount of people accessing the same amount of threads at any one time on the forums then CPU usage is still going to be as high, and thus it's still going to be a problem.

And I honestly don't see how people offering up a bit of money now will be able to cover the costs of a decent dedicated server.  Our intentions may be honourable, but a decent dedicated server can cost $100 per month (at a minimum) AND somebody has to manage the server as well. That will become quite expensive.