Does anybody read very old posts?

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

One of the ways I can speed up the forum is by pruning out older posts. I'd be interested to hear if you ever read posts that are a year or more old?

We're going to have to do something, and I am considering my options. This query is just to gather some information.

Chuck

[Chris Alger]

I do. Many of the old poker posts are invaluable. I wonder if they can't be archived or if it's possible for someone with a good eye (and a lot of extra time) to prune them.

[HDPM]

Archives are great to have around. The recent thread Clarkmeister built around an archived hand was one perfect example. Do what you can to keep them available IMO.

[Ed Miller]

Deleting them outright is probably not a good idea, since a lot of the best material on these forums is over a year old. I don't see a need to have these threads available for new posts, though. So if you could rip them out into a read-only format, that would probably be fine.

[daryn]

i suggest he start deleting threads starting from the most recent. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[adios]

I was wondering if you could make the older posts available in a file format that we could download if we wanted to. Perhaps with the explosion of poker and how well 2+2 is doing they can invest in a "server farm" or something like that /images/graemlins/smile.gif. I think I made about the third post on this site after it's initial start up, for reasons of vanity I'd like to keep them around.

[PipeWalker]

Old posts/threads good for n00bs like myself makes so i dont have to bug people with same qustions as often

[scalf]

/images/graemlins/frown.gif GEESH; CHUCK...

DOES THIS MEAN SUBURBAN POKER MAN WILL BE EXPUNGED//

sorry about the shoutin...

boy, oh, bouy; i'd keep em ; if ya can..

jmho

gl /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/club.gif

[JoeU]

[ QUOTE ]
I was wondering if you could make the older posts available in a file format that we could download if we wanted to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Chuck,

I think this is a great suggestion from Adios. There are times when I'd like to read older posts and not be logged onto the site. This would allow me to download sections to the hard-drive and print as I wish. I also think you'd might want to limit the archive to the Hold'em, Stud, and other poker topics forums. Doesn't make much sense to archive the gossip.

Joe

[Clarkmeister]

NO NO NO NO NO. Do whatever possible to keep it all. I know its a huge burden on the server and takes up a ton of space, but there is a gold mine of information in these forums. If you did choose to kill the old stuff, please at least let us know ahead of time so those of us that want to have some time to go and find (and save) all the older stuff we think is valuable.

Thanks

[Robk]

[ QUOTE ]
We're going to have to do something, and I am considering my options. This query is just to gather some information.


[/ QUOTE ]

Would getting rid of the Internet forum speed things up any?

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

I pretty much got the answers that I expected to get. At this point I see two options (and deleting posts outright is not one of them...never really was):

1. Dump older posts into a flat file.
2. Move the older posts to a new "archive" set of forums that is separate from the main forums.

The key is to get the old posts out of the forum database. But there is no problem if they are stored in a different database. Also, I am somewhat indifferent if it takes longer for people to browse the archives than the main forums.

Either option is going to take some work, and won't be done overnight. In the meantime, during peak times, we're likely to experience longer delays than I would like.

Chuck

[Clarkmeister]

Please try and go with option #2. Having the archives be searchable is pretty key to keeping their usefulness high.

[Matt Flynn]

Archives are hugely useful. You can, with minor technical help, segregate your site to improve speed. Simplest way is get another IP address and put the archives on separate servers at that address.

If you are going to delete old posts you owe it to all of us to give us a few weeks notice so we can find and save our favorite posts. There are some very funny ones buried in there.

Matt

[John Feeney]

[ QUOTE ]
Please try and go with option #2. Having the archives be searchable is pretty key to keeping their usefulness high.

[/ QUOTE ]

I vote for #2 as well. In fact, while you're at it, Chuck, is there any easy way to improve the search feature? Is there, for example, some free search client that could be easily attached to the archives? It would be nice to be able to search all the archives at once, especially with some precision as you can in something like google. But I understand there might be a lot of work involved in setting such a thing up. I just don't know.

[Phat Mack]

Either of these options would work for me, but I agree that #2 would be the best. The "older archives" are a little more difficult to search but are still usable.

[dogsballs]

go for some form of #2, I say. The archives are invaluable.

[Cyrus]

I think someone already wrote this, but here's my two cents:

You need to separate the chuff (eg jokes, silly comments, irrelevant sub-threads, flames, etc) from the good stuff (the poker content). This means a daily job of monitoring the boards and marking the worthwhile posts & threads. (You can be alerted to worthwhile posts by readers, as well: "Hey, Chuck, I think the above post by XYZ deserves to be archived".)

Since you have not done this up to now, you will need to treat it the archiving as a Project. Assign this to someone, have him look over all the old posts, and to pick a large list of those he thinks are wirth it. Then he turns them over to the webmaster(s) who have final say.

The good stuff is archived, in proper thread mode, and the rest is totally junked.

ONE MORE THING ABOUT IMPROVING CLARITY IN THREADS: You have a default mode whereby the title of Post A, the post you are responding to, is repeated int he title of post B, the response post. This is bad for clarity. When you have a thread with fifty posts, all titled "Re: Poker hand discussion", you are left with two options to get the best information: Read all the posts (time consuming) or read the posts written by reknown posters (robs you of the potential good input provided by relative unknowns).

SUGGESTION : Make it the default mode that people have to write in the title. You will soon see the posts and the threads get a lot clearer. (And you will see that this will also make it a little easier when wading through the chuff in order to find the archiving-worthy posts.)

Compare these two hypothetical threads for clarity:

CURRENT SYSTEM :

Poker hand discussion wanted - PkerPlyr
---Re: Poker hand discussion wanted - MMMMMMM
------Re: Poker hand discussion wanted - Ray Zee
---Re: Poker hand discussion wanted - Ray Zee
------Re: Poker hand discussion wanted - Mason Malmuth
---Re: Poker hand discussion wanted - George

PROPOSED SYSTEM :

Poker hand discussion wanted - PkerPlyr
---Were you playing at the Taj? - MMMMMMM
------I guess Donald would be pleased! - Ray Zee
---You played it wrong - Ray Zee
------This is already covered in Poker Essays II- Mason Malmuth
---I was your dealer at that table- George

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[ QUOTE ]
2. Move the older posts to a new "archive" set of forums that is separate from the main forums.


[/ QUOTE ]

this is clearly the best option. I read old posts sometimes and I really hate the digest forms for the oldest posts and also I hate flat mode.

al