Remove the "Other Topics" forums.

sherl0k · Maniac Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: the internet

Now, I realize that DDRFreak is a HUGE community, and the places has grown leaps and bounds over the years. BUT. with that comes the price of more members, more posting, and overall more bandwidth. Which means more money to fund the site.

Recently JDogg has been toying with new ways of showing ads to generate the revenue. I have no problem with this, he's just a guy trying to break even on a site that serves so many people at once.

Now my suggestion, while it may seem way up there in the air, is just remove a few of the non-essential forums we have on the site, that don't pertain to the site's main theme: DDR.

I'm looking at the main page. 131,611 posts have been made in threads NOT related to DDR. 134,477 are in the main DDR section. 419,673 are in the regional forums. if my math is correct 1 out of every 5 posts, or a whopping 20% of the posts is dedicated to only 5 general forums. And they're not even Bemani-related.

On top of that, look at what the bandwidth is going to. Pointless and stupid threads.

Now, JDogg, how would you like to decrease bandwidth by nearly 20%, by removing a few things on this site that aren't even related to DDR? If i were in your shoes (the famous autographed AM-3P ones, that is) I'd at least try it out for a month and see what happens.
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[quote:ed1f6848c5=\\\"jaeness\\\"]get your change from obama, he apparently has tons of it.[/quote]

El Cliffórdo · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 3:00 pm Post subject:

While some of the conversation will go on in other places, I think that having, say, a Random Chat forum encourages random chatting... By this, I mean the place itself spawns random chat as opposed to merely being a place for random chat to be contained.

This isn't really a bad thing in itself, I like a natter just as much as anyone else, but a board which is having to use drastic (Playstation Xbox PS2 Game Boy) measures to try and bring in some cash doesn't seem like the best place to offer itself as a host to discussions about mint commercials.

sherl0k · Maniac Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: the internet

Well the point I guess i was trying to get at was that there are so many other forums on the internet dedicated to other console gaming, imaging, and *cough* mint commercials. All I'm saying is that all those topics can be carried on elsewhere where it would be more relevant. In fact, the topics may get more interesting elsewhere because the amount of people who play DDR is probably nothing compared to the number of people who play OTHER games aside from DDR. but as for mint commercials... there may not be a following of them anywhere else on the internet.
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[quote:ed1f6848c5=\\\"jaeness\\\"]get your change from obama, he apparently has tons of it.[/quote]

El Cliffórdo · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 3:28 pm Post subject:

Yeah, my point was that the forums do make a nice 'filler' to the DDR talk, but if this filler is coming at the expense of the rest of the forum, is making up a large majority of the total posts and is lots of horrible, idiotic stuff anyway, then it might be an idea to do something about it.

So I agree with ya.

Agilab · Contributor Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Location: Baltimore, MD

If I recall correctly, the Mid-Atlantic forum had more posts in it than Random Chat did, but recently it has just taken off more than it has in the past and has quite a lead over Mid-Atlantic now....
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Request Lock · Trick Member Joined: 12 Feb 2003

random chat is for just that. if you were to eliminate the random chat forum, what of the regulars who are there? decrease the surplus population i suppose. And the "hot guys" thread is one of the most popular in imaging, along with it's sister, the "hot girls" thread (which strangely enough wasn't listed as pointless)

i disagree, i believe the forums structure is fine as it is, everything has it's place, and is well supported
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P-Chan · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 10:51 pm Post subject:

while I agree with that about the bandwith and the money needed to fund it, I disagree with getting rid of those forums...

most people come here because of ddr, obviously, but talking about JUST ddr gets old FAST
most of the questions people can do are already answered, and most of the topics you can create around ddr are kinda repetitive

I like the fact that we have forums to create a more bonded community, not just a bunch of ddr players

and well... I´ve read in some other boards that option of taking the randomness in other boards... the thing is, usually it´s not the place, but the people who´ll read that stuff

of course, I´m no admin and don´t make such administrative decisions, so this is just my point of view
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XhaD · Trick Member Joined: 16 Jan 2002 Location: Moved on...

When I saw this post I thought of other gaming forums I've seen with no "Random Chat" area, but then I remembered that the reason why is because those games are actually interesting to talk about. I could make like 12 stickies and lock the DDR Chit-Chat to new posts and the general subject matter would remain almost the same. I'm guessing that's the reason behind "forum drift" for most users.

JDogg doesn't tend to add a new forum until the demand presents itself. If he removed those forums, even if we continued to lock off-topic posts it would mean we'd be locking posts every five minutes.
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Cutriss · Staff Member Joined: 24 Jan 2002

I know quite a few people who either don't play DDR anymore, or they just don't like to talk about it anymore, and they still stick around here for Random Chat and such.

While it may be a good point that 20% or more of the traffic is non-DDR-related, you have to realize that killing that forum would alienate a *LOT* of site visitors. Also, you won't kill that 20% cleanly - People will take it elsewhere, even if they aren't supposed to, and so the mods will have their hands full locking/deleting/warning people for it.
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Sentient Mode is capable...

El Cliffórdo · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 8:15 am Post subject:

I realise that people do enjoy the random chat forum, i'm not averse to it myself, but it does seem lots of meaningless ramble goes on there. While it's nice to have a place to chat, it does seem a bit silly to have a forum literally dedicated to posting whatever random babble you can come up with at the same Playstation time as discussing new methods of advertising, on a board which used to warn against posting redundant poll threads because bandwidth isn't free.

Like I said, I think a lot of the random chatting only occurs because we have a random chat forum, not that it would occur anyway. This means that if you remove the forum, you remove a lot of the chat (and need to have a forum). It's kind of like the "Babble" threads on the Stratics forum (a hellhole though it may be). When a mod posts one they reach thousands of pages, people posting whatever's on their minds. Nobody can doubt the thread participants enjoy the thread, but if it never got posted, I doubt more than a few would feel any worse off for it not being there. Most people probably wouldn't even remember it existing.

edit: I'm not even proposing we nuke the forum right off the bat. Like Sherl0k said, I think it would do some good to lock the mentioned forums for a week or two. See if other threads get popping up anywhere, and see if the load on the server decreases somewhat. Depending on what happens, you'll have a better idea on if this is the right course of action to take or not.

sherl0k · Maniac Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: the internet

Having a community as big an active as this place is GREAT, don't get me wrong. But when it comes at the expense of money (and my braincells when I read a few of the threads) I just think the site may be better off without those few forums. Just lock them for a couple weeks, see how things go. If there are desirable results, and the other forums aren't being frantic because of missing off-topic forums, then you have yourselves a solution.

Cutriss, am I the only one disturbed by the fact that people visit the DDRFreak forums, and post massively, talking about everything aside from DDR?
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[quote:ed1f6848c5=\\\"jaeness\\\"]get your change from obama, he apparently has tons of it.[/quote]

Bringer of Death · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 8:47 am Post subject:

sherl0k · Maniac Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: the internet

DJ Tau · Trick Member Joined: 03 Sep 2003

Um

is there any particular reason why they can't just use mod_gzip?

Cutriss · Staff Member Joined: 24 Jan 2002

Because mod_gzip doesn't work very well when Apache can't keep up with the number of requests it needs to serve, or when PostgreSQL gets flooded with connections.

I should point out that while it's not very relevant, about the worst thing you can do on a website that gets Slashdotted is to run mod_gzip.
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Sentient Mode is capable...

El Cliffórdo · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 9:02 am Post subject:

DJ Tau · Trick Member Joined: 03 Sep 2003

sherl0k · Maniac Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: the internet

Zend is running on this server if my memory serves me correctly.
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[quote:ed1f6848c5=\\\"jaeness\\\"]get your change from obama, he apparently has tons of it.[/quote]

Bringer of Death · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 9:37 am Post subject:

Request Lock · Trick Member Joined: 12 Feb 2003

i'm going with DB on this one. If you lock a forum, they'll just move to another forums to post about it. The only reason to lock a forum is if it's out of control and pulls a NY. If you lock random chat, it'll get posted in chit chat/gameplay/everywhere. The thread is made so you can talk about other things then ddr or video games in general. We're not all one trick ponies. I can assure you that the regulars there don't believe that the threads are stupid. Ask the werewolf game kids
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