Title says it all.

Poll included.

I find it annoying, for forum games like the silly game, 2 rate teh avatar, etc. I don't think there should be a limit at all. I think that maybe no less than 3 words would be a good limit.

And many people here seem to find it annoying. Notably the people who put in bright words: Dang 10 character limit, or something like that.

Nah .

It doesn't affect anything really. I mean people have found away around it so if it's there or not it doesn't really make much difference. I spose newbies and stuff will think a bit more about their posts...
but apart from that...

Normally, I'd say "yes, it's a bad thing", except for things like this:
I find it annoying, for forum games like the silly game, 2 rate teh avatar, etc.
See, the thing about the 10-character limit is that it encourages people to make a comment on the avatar they're rating, and not just "7/10 lol".

7/10 lol

Nope .

I don't care about the 10 limit thing. I guess it's just okay.

. .

Edit: do I win? Sorry, I thought we were playing the MAKE THE SHORTEST POST game. Nice to know it IS possible to underestimate you lot

Aw, can't get shorter than that :(

Has any unknowing noob noticed anything weird yet...

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2566/29154638pl0.png

http://gfhgfhdgfdhgfdhfh

http://gfhgfhdgfdhgfdhfh

Congratulations, you win my pity

‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏

Edit: Damnit, I'm late, as usual.

How the heck muzer did you make your post completely blank?

How the heck muzer did you make your post completely blank?

*cries*
Ironic

No need to ask about it, Shadowmoon.

No need to ask about it, Shadowmoon.

I'm just curious, thats all.

http://gfhgfhdgfdhgfdhfh

It's not hard to work out shadowmoon.

http://gfhgfhdgfdhgfdhfh!

I find it annoying, for forum games like the silly game, 2 rate teh avatar, etc. I don't think there should be a limit at all. I think that maybe no less than 3 words would be a good limit.

I'm confused - are you for or against the limit?

You can't have certain threads ignore the limit and others obey it - it's all or nothing and I can't really see valid reasons for disabling it as it will then promote one word/one smilie replies which will mean even more work for the mods.

And Muzer/MtlAngelus - your little trick didn't work, as I get Safari's "That image didn't load" icon :p

And Muzer/MtlAngelus - your little trick didn't work, as I get Safari's "That image didn't load" icon :p

I got that too

‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏

There seems to be no need for the limit seeing as how easy it is to work around. But it's there to encurage people to write longer posts, though few seem to get the hint.

But on a counter note, longer posts are in no way an assurance of quality.

Let's make it 100 characters then :p

I think the ten character limit is unnecessary because people can just type random characters to make their posts exceed the limit. It does not encourage people to elaborate. It does not prevent trash.

If the idea is to encourage more elaborate posting, then a better solution is education. If the mods don't have time to do that, then hire more mods.

10?http://shadowmoon_is_a_dunce

And Muzer/MtlAngelus - your little trick didn't work, as I get Safari's "That image didn't load" icon :p
Serves me right for switching to XP and using Opera. D:
*goes back to MacOS*

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/9791/blankon7.png

I can see the point it serves, but I agree with worMatty.

I'm confused - are you for or against the limit?

You can't have certain threads ignore the limit and others obey it - it's all or nothing and I can't really see valid reasons for disabling it as it will then promote one word/one smilie replies which will mean even more work for the mods.

And Muzer/MtlAngelus - your little trick didn't work, as I get Safari's "That image didn't load" icon :p

I believe he suggested changing it to a minimum # of words rather then # of characters.

I believe he suggested changing it to a minimum # of words rather then # of characters.
that will just replace "lol" posts with "l o l" posts.

Once i had a problem making a post that just said banned

now I use permabanned

...

I don't think the workarounds invalidate the rule entirely, I think that posts shoud really (attempt to) say something otherwise they are more than a little pointless.

that will just replace "lol" posts with "l o l" posts.

Thats why theres a infraction system...

Once i had a problem making a post that just said banned

now I use permabanned

...

I don't think the workarounds invalidate the rule entirely, I think that posts shoud really (attempt to) say something otherwise they are more than a little pointless.the system IS rather pointless but so is removing it. I'm sure it's encouraged a fair few useful posts, but removing it would have about as noticeable an effect on post quality as implementing it. it's just sort of there, really.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/2686/blankon8hx3.png
EDIT: Stupid paint :p

‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏

Kilburn, I'm not sure how you did that one. Could you please tell me?


Or did you add null characters or something that the forum deletes. I'll try it now.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8955/pixelhm0.png (http://imageshack.us)

Or did you add null characters or something that the forum deletes. I'll try it now.

You are on the right way. :) Think with special characters.

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8955/pixelhm0.png (http://imageshack.us)

You, however, are not. :p

Come to think of it: The less letters in a post, the less space it takes.

There should be a 10 letter max.

You, however, are not. :p

It was worth a try.

ׂׂׂׂׂׂׂׂׂׂ
∞

ׂׂׂׂׂׂׂׂׂׂ
∞

♥ Arabian characters. :cool:

I think that maybe no less than 3 words would be a good limit.

Given that most ten-character-limit problems occur when you want to post a single word (because with two or more words you can shove a whole bunch of spaces between them), why would a three-word limit be any more liberal? It'd be less liberal to my mind.

Given that most ten-character-limit problems occur when you want to post a single word (because with two or more words you can shove a whole bunch of spaces between them), why would a three-word limit be any more liberal? It'd be less liberal to my mind.

Dunno

Its a suggestian

http://idiot.com/piehead.bmp

http://idiot.com/piehead.bmp

Using images is old now.

It was old after the first person did it in this thread... I don't think that will stop it Muzer.

I don't see how a blank post beats the 10 character limit anyways, you're still not getting anything across.

I don't see how a blank post beats the 10 character limit anyways, you're still not getting anything across.in this thread it was more of a taunt. in other threads it would just be spam...which I guess it still is in this thread as well, but here was it was more amusing :p

I don't see how a blank post beats the 10 character limit anyways, you're still not getting anything across.
you can also use a character + a bunch of null characters. this just shows that limit or not, you can post a message of any length, including zero length.

I'll tell you what I do find annoying. The forum requiring you to wait 20 seconds between searches. THAT is annoying imo.

Oh yes. Make the search only avalible to reg'd users and make unreg'd users have an image verification/20s limit.


The 20s limit really ****es me off.


Reminds me when I was skipping through pages on google really fast (I could just glance at it because I knew what the title was) and it thought I was a bot and gave me a nice screen saying "use google. by the way we've suspened your IP for 20 mins"


EDIT: What? That word that means pee/drunk/whatever (p i s s) is censored? :p

http://fiohtngohgirﱢﱠ

I'll tell you what I do find annoying. The forum requiring you to wait 20 seconds between searches. THAT is annoying imo.Seconded. It even counts failed results and I always seem to get "You must wait 1 second before doing another search."

It's not annoying. Funny, the same discussion has been taking place recently on a kids forum I visit.

Wh... why do you visit a kids' forum?

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8206/eyebrowsze3.gif <--- worMatty

Wh... why do you visit a kids' forum?
his erm... niece hangs around there.

Seconded. It even counts failed results and I always seem to get "You must wait 1 second before doing another search."

I think that's the most annoying part. It's like "WHO GIVES A DAMN ABOUT ONE SECOND?!:mad::mad:"

I've dropped the search timer to 10s, we'll see how that goes.

I've dropped the search timer to 10s, we'll see how that goes.I love you forever :p

I've dropped the search timer to 10s, we'll see how that goes.

GET IN!
I didn't expect that at all. Thank you!

The search timer shouldn't be removed. I believe searching in a forum is what takes most of its bandwidth.

Cache the forum once every hour?

The search timer shouldn't be removed. I believe searching in a forum is what takes most of its bandwidth.
no. it doesn't waste bandwidth. it can slow down the database a bit, which is why search timers exist. but i don't think there are that many searches being done on t17 forums.

no. it doesn't waste bandwidth. it can slow down the database a bit, which is why search timers exist. but i don't think there are that many searches being done on t17 forums.
Over 1.1 million since the forum opened. Every time you click "New Posts", that's a search, for example. There's about twice as many searches as posts, let's put it that way (posts which haven't been deleted that is)

Over 1.1 million since the forum opened. Every time you click "New Posts", that's a search, for example. There's about twice as many searches as posts, let's put it that way (posts which haven't been deleted that is)
sure, if you get technical, any operation on the forum is a search. that's what sequel is designed around. but we are talking about actual searches.

when you look for new posts, create a new thread, post a reply, even just refresh a page, there is a search executed on the db. however, these searches are done typically by various id values that are carefully indexed. that means that there is a hash table which makes searching for a post a little more complicated than a table look-up.

when you search the board, however, you tend to search by words in the titles or actual messages. these aren't indexed. indeed, it would take a lot of space to even index the titles, let alone constructing concordances for messages. that search literally looks at every message within search parameters and checks every word within that message against the search string. that takes a while. if enough people are running searches at once, the db is busy with these and cannot reply to queries from other users. that means everyone sits there, waiting for their thread to open or message to post.

i don't think there are that many real searches being executed here. i mean, real, string searches. personally, i have never noticed the db to hick up. i've seen the http portion to slow down a few times, but that may be due to connections to www on team17.com, since both www and forum are served from the same ip.

usually, when the db is overstressed, when you open a page on the forum, you get the header to pop up right away, then there is a long pause, and then everything else pops up right away. if there are too many connections to the http server, you stare at a blank page for a while, then the whole thing comes up almost at once. finally, if there is too much bandwidth being used, the whole page tends to load a few posts at a time. the only one i've seen this forum do is the blank page one. so i really don't think the searches are currently hurting anything.

i don't think there are that many real searches being executed here. i mean, real, string searches.

Well I've just carried out a search from search.php and its ID was 1108772 - indicating that there have been well over 1.1 million searches. vB doesn't just randomly assign search ID's.

personally, i have never noticed the db to hick up. i've seen the http portion to slow down a few times, but that may be due to connections to www on team17.com, since both www and forum are served from the same ip.

Err, which forum have you been visiting? We've had a Buttload™ of database errors this year alone. You then get the nice vB message saying there's a database error and you can't access a single page on the forum.
so i really don't think the searches are currently hurting anything.

Not compared to attachments, anyway...

Right... so a mod of this forum has just explained to Quakerworm how this forum works...
$10 says Quaker argues against what he just said in 3.. 2.. 1...

sequel
Don't type out pronounciation. it's irritating, Eff Eff Ess.

Thanks, quakerworm for pointing that out. That makes a lot of sense.

Well I've just carried out a search from search.php and its ID was 1108772 - indicating that there have been well over 1.1 million searches. vB doesn't just randomly assign search ID's.Clicking the New Posts link gets you a search ID, too. The one I just got is 1108945. So the vB search IDs appear to include New Posts searches.

Err, which forum have you been visiting? We've had a Buttload™ of database errors this year alone. You then get the nice vB message saying there's a database error and you can't access a single page on the forum.Yes, but those have been long outages lasting whole weekends. Not temporary ones likely caused by search overloads. Those are irrelevant.

Well I've just carried out a search from search.php and its ID was 1108772 - indicating that there have been well over 1.1 million searches. vB doesn't just randomly assign search ID's.
as i said, not a lot. to slow down a forum, you certainly need more than one search going on concurrently. even if you have 1 million searches per year, you'll only have two per minute on average. and as noted, it includes 'new posts' searches, which are a lot faster.
Err, which forum have you been visiting? We've had a Buttload™ of database errors this year alone. You then get the nice vB message saying there's a database error and you can't access a single page on the forum.errors, sure. no lags, though, as far as i can see.
Right... so a mod of this forum has just explained to Quakerworm how this forum works...
$10 says Quaker argues against what he just said in 3.. 2.. 1...
i've ran vb forums as superadmin on other servers (including one where i made myself a superadmin, because real admins didn't care enough to even fix security holes.) and have heavily modified the code for them. i didn't mess with searches much, but i have written some mods that check who is posting what and make changes to db accordingly. i think i'm qualified to comment on the inner workings of the forum.

as i said, not a lot. to slow down a forum, you certainly need more than one search going on concurrently. even if you have 1 million searches per year, you'll only have two per minute on average. and as noted, it includes 'new posts' searches, which are a lot faster.
Er, no one said that there were "1 million searches per year". It's over 1 million overall.

Er, no one said that there were "1 million searches per year". It's over 1 million overall.
what i actually said was, "even if you have 1 million searches per year [...]". bold font for emphasis. still not clear? let me rephrase it.

"i do not care enough to look up the actual age of the forum, but if we take it to be 1 million per year, which is a lot higher than it actually is if there are 1.1 million total, we still end up with less than 2 searches per minute, which is insufficient to cause any problems. let alone the actual value of 1.1 million over the age of the forum."

if you could not make that mental jump yourself, here it is. if it still isn't clear why taking 1M/year is all you have to do to show that searches aren't overloading the db, i cannot help you.

Maybe there aren't as many searches because of the 20 second limit D:

Just a thought.

unless there is a sufficient number of people who just sit here all day and make random searches, with the current spacing of well over 30 seconds on average, i don't think that 20 second limit is the principal contribution.

there should be a limit, because otherwise someone can dos the board with a simple search spider, but whether it is 5 or 20 seconds won't make a big difference, with the former being far less annoying.

Well, for if you get around three results, have accidently mistyped words, or get no results are just three reasons why you may want to do searches in > 20s intervals.

Well, for if you get around three results, have accidently mistyped words, or get no results are just three reasons why you may want to do searches in > 20s intervals.
why? it's just annoying. considering how rare searches actually happen on this forum, there is no reason not to let someone make another search almost right away if they mistyped something or got no results. limit should be just long enough to prevent dos attack performed from a few ips.

Wow. Your inability to accept facts that have been given by people who run the forum is astounding.

Wow. Your inability to accept facts that have been given by people who run the forum is astounding.he's even arguing against his own point now with muzer.

I say we create a betting pot.


Also, ten character limits I find are quite useful. It keeps people from spamming junk in forums for kicks and giggles.

Also '':rolleyes:'' posts are annoying.

I say we create a betting pot.


Also, ten character limits I find are quite useful. It keeps people from spamming junk in forums for kicks and giggles.

Also '':rolleyes:'' posts are annoying.
http://forum.team17.co.uk/images/newsmilies/rolleyes.gif

I say we create a betting pot.


Also, ten character limits I find are quite useful. It keeps people from spamming junk in forums for kicks and giggles.

Also '':rolleyes:'' posts are annoying.:rolleyes:

Wow. Your inability to accept facts that have been given by people who run the forum is astounding.
what facts? what the hell are you even talking about?

and seeing how volcadmin lowered the cooldown to 10 seconds, i think people who actually run the forum agree with me for once.

I meant < 20s :o. I'm saying it should be abolished, the 20s limit.

what facts? what the hell are you even talking about?
How about being told that a hojillion searches have been made so far, and yet you seem to think that this counts as "not many"?

I say we create a betting pot.


Also, ten character limits I find are quite useful. It keeps people from spamming junk in forums for kicks and giggles.

Also '':rolleyes:'' posts are annoying.

:rolleyes:

This thread's going absolutely nowhere now, so I'm locking it. And for the record, anyone who posts nothing but ":rolleyes:" in a reply will be infracted with anything between a 0 and 20 point infraction depending on what mood the mods are in and which checkbox is closest to our mouse pointers :p Generally that's the 20-pointer 30 day ban one.


*Thread closed*


One other thing:
Yes, but those have been long outages lasting whole weekends. Not temporary ones likely caused by search overloads. Those are irrelevant.

Those are only weekend-long outages because volcadmin doesn't work at the weekends to reset the fourm.