Fruitcake MIDI Forum Treasury

[The Dragon]

We've begun implementing the auto-pruning measures for most of the visible forums. Each forum has different pruning rules which will be in this topic and in topics under each forum for viewing and recall convenience. The pruning measures are as follows:

Misc Forum: 30 days
Site-O-Rama: 90 days
Gobbledygook: 30 days
Video Gaming Grotto: 60 days
Media Madness: 90 days
Role-Playing Forum: 120 days

This means that any topic that hasn't been replied to that long in that forum will be swept into the interweb abyss, lost forever. This is where the Treasury Candidate Program comes in.

For just a single post, just a minute of your time, you can sponsor a topic to be moved to the treasury.

*ahem*

You may post in this thread if there's a topic that's getting to the end of its life that you'd like us to consider relocating to the topic treasury. If a mod feels that it's worth saving, then one of us will move it. Just bear in mind that not all threads should necessarily be saved. While I'm sure everyone will admit that all FCMidi threads are precious, we must conserve space in the forum database to prevent crashes like the most recent one and to make it easier for us to maintain database backups.

Good examples of topics that could be saved are word game topics (like if they're seeing daily use but are hitting 2000 posts or some other fun, high number), or if there's an RP game topic that needs to be moved for a time, as it's been put on hold for one reason or another.

Mods can see which threads are nearing the end, and some of us will move threads as we see fit, but I've opted to give you guys this thread in the event that you want to make your own suggestions, so they're more easily noticeable.

When you name a topic, please provide a link to the topic itself. It is optional, but recommended to include a reason for the move.

[Damian]

Do polls still prevent the auto pruning measures?
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when the world is sick, can't no one be well? but i dreamt we was all beautiful and strong
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[The Dragon]

No, they don't.

I explicitly made a mod that defeated that. Only stickies and announcements escape the prune function.

A funny note, though--in default phpbb setups, polls escape prune and stickies don't. W.T.F.

[Sam]

Wow, that's RARtarded.

This vaguely reminds me of 4chan in that in an "epic thread" people say "cap this pl0x" BUT HERE we say "Topic Treasury this pl0x."

How interesting.

[chzrm3]

Hmm, do you think the forums are really at the point where a 30 day prune is necessary? I mean, the misc board barely has +10 threads. Then again, if space needs to be consolidated so the entire forums won't asplode, I guess it's worth lots of threads going every month.

Hai, how hard would it be for us to like... download little archive things of the forum every month? I'd just do that like the day before the auto prune and save a buncho crapz.
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[quote="Someone's sig on the AoC forums"]THis game really is more geared towards the adult then, teenbeat wow. This mmo makes u think, somthing a teenager hates to do. -Skopas, eloquently discussing how grown up AoC is.

No read comprehension is not your strong point so I'll you a picture for you. -ubeenhad, just before he a picture for me[/quote]

[quote="Wormy"]I wish I could supply, as everyone else as, good news regarding my love life but sadly not as I am currently shagging a fat girl until I find someone better. [/quote]

[The Dragon]

We're maybe a third of the way into 30 days. Given time we'll have threads that have to be deleted. What's important to me is that we have things set up beforehand and done in a less convoluted and patchwork way than they were before.

If all 10 threads stay active, then there's no problem, but if a thread or two somehow doesn't receive a post in 30 days, don't you think that it's time for it to be let go? Of course there will be exceptions, but we've already discussed that. The point is, we're going in knowing our limits and having something hanging over our heads to keep us from causing damage when we slack off.

And what you've mentioned is called a backup. We used to do it with phpBB's backup system every time we installed a mod (maybe every 6 months) but since we started using an automated system, we haven't had to do that.

Since the asplosion though, I've discussed monthly backups with Dr Fruitcake through HostDime which require a login to access and for good reason. Anything else would be problematic, especially considering the issue we had with the last time we tried to make a backup. 130 meg database export? BANNINATION.

There is no way for us to slice up the forum into little parts and give you just the threads from here or there. Believe me in that reconstructing a database from piecework such as that would be a tremendous pain. This is why this system is here. If you want to just save the text of stuff though, you can do that already by "saving page as".

As for what we lose, you have to understand that I proposed this system with prevention of total loss in mind (both in terms of topics and with regard to the database overall)... it may not be the perfect idea but I really did pay attention to the way each forum was treated. 30 days is a long time, and frankly we have easily forgotten about things that fall off the top 15 topics. If it's not important, we'll never go looking for it, so there's no point in saving it.

[Powerlord]

[The Dragon]

It was a large database, and backing it up was more trouble than it was worth. The problem was that that phpBB 2.0 configuration didn't make polls expire and our users 'sploited that to make sure a significant number of the topics remained for months and years. We had topics that remained after the prune function was turned off, leaving pages and pages of threads at the depths of the Misc forum (among others) that had polls.

We've fixed it so that regular posts and polls will prune, while stickies and announcements won't be pruned. (I find it amazing that by default, stickies would be pruned)

Of course, trying to go and delete them would have been a pain, especially with the way people get attached to things. In a way I thought of the crash as a good opportunity, giving us an option instead of putting me up as the villain that trimmed out everyone's favorite topics.

It doesn't really bother me that the topics would expire. I feel that if we don't use them, then there's no reason in keeping them, but many of the users here want to keep more than we can or should. And the auto-lock may have been a good idea a couple weeks ago, but we have since developed a mod to help us detect which threads are about to expire.

Edit: Powerlord, I'm sure you think that it was a ridiculous idea to wait for the crash to happen, considering the precarious state of the database, and I would agree. But to put it another way, sometimes something has to go wrong for change to be "permitted".

[Powerlord]

[chzrm3]

Alright so death time is coming up in a few weeks, you think we should preserve some of the initial "hey, we're back" threads? Just cause yknow they're nice n stuff.
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[quote="Someone's sig on the AoC forums"]THis game really is more geared towards the adult then, teenbeat wow. This mmo makes u think, somthing a teenager hates to do. -Skopas, eloquently discussing how grown up AoC is.

No read comprehension is not your strong point so I'll you a picture for you. -ubeenhad, just before he a picture for me[/quote]

[quote="Wormy"]I wish I could supply, as everyone else as, good news regarding my love life but sadly not as I am currently shagging a fat girl until I find someone better. [/quote]

[Poopsoda16]

What about the NSFW thread?
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Hi, I'm pacman and I'm covered in poop!

A recent study shows that 92% of all teenagers have moved on to rap music. Put this in your sig if you are one of the 8% who stayed with real music.

[Damian]

We don't have an NSFW thread, do we?
_________________
when the world is sick, can't no one be well? but i dreamt we was all beautiful and strong
-
listen to my music!
-
facebook | twitter | last.fm | youtube

[Poopsoda16]

We used to.
_________________
Hi, I'm pacman and I'm covered in poop!

A recent study shows that 92% of all teenagers have moved on to rap music. Put this in your sig if you are one of the 8% who stayed with real music.

[Upsilon]

Back in the glory days
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Delivering very monthly quotes for over six freaking years, it's Upsi's Quote of the Month:

"Don't have premaritals - it hurts your pre-genitals!" -chzrm3

[Damian]

Well, if it wouldn't end up sparking a massive debate amongst everyone again, I'd propose a new one.
_________________
when the world is sick, can't no one be well? but i dreamt we was all beautiful and strong
-
listen to my music!
-
facebook | twitter | last.fm | youtube

[Poopsoda16]

Joe's cat can do the honors.
_________________
Hi, I'm pacman and I'm covered in poop!

A recent study shows that 92% of all teenagers have moved on to rap music. Put this in your sig if you are one of the 8% who stayed with real music.

[Banjo-Fella]

It's been mentioned in the topic itself, but it really needs to be properly acknowledged that the Tommy topic needs to be preserved for all of time. It'll be shown as part of the education of future generations, a robotic claw carefully navigating each of its hyperlinks so that it won't be slowly weathered away. But not until it unfolds fully, though. Just don't forget, when it has.
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~Banjo-Fella

[Poopsoda16]

That topic is hillarious but everyone thinks its freakish. Totally topic treasury.
_________________
Hi, I'm pacman and I'm covered in poop!

A recent study shows that 92% of all teenagers have moved on to rap music. Put this in your sig if you are one of the 8% who stayed with real music.

[Cheese Monkey]

The Tommy topic gets my vote.

I also think we should preserve "Screenshot or it didn't happen." Momentous event, after all. I just saw it go red (red title = marked for deletion, mods can see it) today so I thought I'd mention it. Unless I see some big opposition, I'm going to move it to the treasury by this weekend.
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This post has been brought to you by
Cheese Monkey - The Funky Cheddar Monkey
(This post made no sense! Tell the people!)

PSO crap (Bestows +1 geekiness)!
[quote="Xenofan"]You wouldn't be here without sex, the internet wouldn't be here without sex, and heck, the Gamecube wouldn't be here without sex.[/quote][quote="Yoshgunn"]At first, don't overthink things. It's OK to become a small African village and injure yourself.[/quote]

[Sam]

Which topic? I have no memories!

[Poopsoda16]

What happened to the Best of YTMND topic?
_________________
Hi, I'm pacman and I'm covered in poop!

A recent study shows that 92% of all teenagers have moved on to rap music. Put this in your sig if you are one of the 8% who stayed with real music.

[Shadow Blade]

I vote for the Tommy topic to go to the Topic Treasury too.

"Screenshot or it didn't happen." needs to go there also.
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http://gadgettr.deviantart.com/

[Poopsoda16]

Nobody even knew the plot of the Tommy topic except so so few.
_________________
Hi, I'm pacman and I'm covered in poop!

A recent study shows that 92% of all teenagers have moved on to rap music. Put this in your sig if you are one of the 8% who stayed with real music.

[Cheese Monkey]

"Screenshot or it didn't happen" is now the first inductee into the Topic Treasury!
_________________
This post has been brought to you by
Cheese Monkey - The Funky Cheddar Monkey
(This post made no sense! Tell the people!)

PSO crap (Bestows +1 geekiness)!
[quote="Xenofan"]You wouldn't be here without sex, the internet wouldn't be here without sex, and heck, the Gamecube wouldn't be here without sex.[/quote][quote="Yoshgunn"]At first, don't overthink things. It's OK to become a small African village and injure yourself.[/quote]

[Dr Fruitcake]

I suppose I should feel honored, or something.
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