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Anyone Else Having Problems Getting On Trials Forum?


trials_pimp

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For the past few weeks I have been having some problems getting on trials forum.

When I go to the site, I get a pink bar with SQL error.

And the top of the tab says: trials forum Driver server error

Have tried it on laptop, desk top, Iphone and ipad and get the same thing

Would say about 8/10 attempts at getting on end like this.

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Suddenly BOTI, and the car thread, are now only 4 pages long. I wonder what happened to all those posts?

They're somewhere safe, Danny has just split the topics. The huge threads are causing the server errors that have been reported (bringing down the whole server - so that includes theminiforum.co.uk who we also host), so they're hidden for the time being. Basically if someone looks at one of them it could bring the server down again. (lol).

We're tying to work out a way to work around it.

The super threads are part of TF history so we don't want to get rid of them totally, but we're not entirely sure what to do yet. It could mean the mega threads get their own section, or maybe splitting them up into monthly threads (or something else - any ideas?) I'm not sure.

Personally I see this as an opportunity to encourage a higher turnover of current, concise and relevant topics. Having seen the days of 20 or 30 topics posted in chat chat per day (which is the reason these threads were started back in 2005), to where we are now, I think we've lost some of the (for want of a better word) excitement of chit chat. Its a tricky situation as we want to keep our older members happy, but we also need to provide a place where new members feel encouraged to participate and eventually become the next generation of 'older members'.

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They're somewhere safe, Danny has just split the topics. The huge threads are causing the server errors that have been reported (bringing down the whole server - so that includes theminiforum.co.uk who we also host), so they're hidden for the time being. Basically if someone looks at one of them it could bring the server down again. (lol).

We're tying to work out a way to work around it.

The super threads are part of TF history so we don't want to get rid of them totally, but we're not entirely sure what to do yet. It could mean the mega threads get their own section, or maybe splitting them up into monthly threads (or something else - any ideas?) I'm not sure.

Personally I see this as an opportunity to encourage a higher turnover of current, concise and relevant topics. Having seen the days of 20 or 30 topics posted in chat chat per day (which is the reason these threads were started back in 2005), to where we are now, I think we've lost some of the (for want of a better word) excitement of chit chat. Its a tricky situation as we want to keep our older members happy, but we also need to provide a place where new members feel encouraged to participate and eventually become the next generation of 'older members'.

Have you got an idea of how big the super-threads have to get to to start the errors? I.e. could you just split at the beginning of the year and have a seperate sub-forums for 'TF History' or something along those lines?

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Seems like the real question is why large topics are causing this issue rather than how to split them up to make them smaller. Best thing to do for now is just to hide all but the last few pages like has been done with BOTI, but still there shouldn't be a reason why you can have a topic 10,000 pages big.

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But JT, when was the last time you went back and read from pages 54 to 64, or 87 to 143?

I agree that we should be able to have topics like this but I agree more with Tom in that these topics tend to sap the excitement out o Chit Chat.

The Angry Thread for instance, I for one got really bored with the content. Surely you'd rather have a stable forum than Posts moaning about punctures and how shit their life is, yawwwn!

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But JT, when was the last time you went back and read from pages 54 to 64, or 87 to 143?

I agree that we should be able to have topics like this but I agree more with Tom in that these topics tend to sap the excitement out o Chit Chat.

The Angry Thread for instance, I for one got really bored with the content. Surely you'd rather have a stable forum than Posts moaning about punctures and how shit their life is, yawwwn!

Never. But my point was about the ability to have a 10,000 topic on a forum which shouldn't be an issue at all. The probable fact that no one would ever actually read any of the pages is irrelevant to the point I was making.

People will bitch about things being too anal like there being one topic like RSQ, and other people will bitch about people asking small quick questions in Chit-chat in the way of a new topic. TF was always a strict high standards forum back in 2004-2006, but now especially in chit-chat if you don't use one of the many designated topics you get beaten down.

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Never. But my point was about the ability to have a 10,000 topic on a forum which shouldn't be an issue at all. The probable fact that no one would ever actually read any of the pages is irrelevant to the point I was making.

You're right, its a bug in the software but it won't be fixed until 3.4. Danny has some stats, but I think the numbers were something like 2 million database rows were being inspected for every topic view.

People will bitch about things being too anal like there being one topic like RSQ, and other people will bitch about people asking small quick questions in Chit-chat in the way of a new topic. TF was always a strict high standards forum back in 2004-2006, but now especially in chit-chat if you don't use one of the many designated topics you get beaten down.

That's the opposite of what I want to happen - Chit chat needs new topics to keep things fresh and interesting, the same as every forum. Otherwise it get stagnant, members go elsewhere, and the trend continues down and down. I'm personally pretty bored of seeing the same 6 or 7 topics for the past 5/6/7 years :/ We used to have heated discussions, people getting riled up, banned all over the shop, sneaking back in, starting up new discussions - those were fun times (if not a little stressful).

Its partly my fault for not manning up years ago and saying 'oi, make a new topic you lazy bast' - but its pretty difficult to do that when you know that some of the older members will kick up a fuss.

What I certainly don't want to see is the same 6 or 7 topics being posted in in a few years time. Similar topics are cool, for example 10 individual 'my car' topics are fine with me - it means the interesting ones will naturally stay at the top of the forum, the boring ones will drop off the front page - that's basically how forums are meant to work, big topics break the convention.

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You're exactly right. Wouldn't hurt to close all the big topics (bar BOTI) and try and enforce a no bitching policy when someone makes a topic with little substance.

Also, ever considered doing something similar to what OTN have done with the request only gutter section? 18+ free for all. Might bring some old and new people back to the forum if we can post tits.

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Of course it was gonna be me to pipe up, but the idea of a hundred 'my car' threads make me want to go hug my knees in a corner of a room, rocking gently. Chit chat is certainly broken, but a shit load of smaller topics won't change the fact that the personalities just aren't as good these days.

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Of course it was gonna be me to pipe up, but the idea of a hundred 'my car' threads make me want to go hug my knees in a corner of a room, rocking gently. Chit chat is certainly broken, but a shit load of smaller topics won't change the fact that the personalities just aren't as good these days.

I think you miss the point. The likelihood is that there will be 100 car threads over the period of a year, the old/outdated ones drop to the bottom and the fresh/popular/interesting ones naturally get bumped to the top (until they become boring or outdated) - make sense?

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I think you miss the point. The likelihood is that there will be 100 car threads over the period of a year, the old/outdated ones drop to the bottom and the fresh/popular/interesting ones naturally get bumped to the top (until they become boring or outdated) - make sense?

Yea, I get that and how forums work. I also know that I use other forums that are set up the way your proposing, and they're shit - the reason I kept coming here when I wasn't riding was because it was better than them because it was organised far better.

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