That should clear up everyone's questions, right? Good ...
As a development team and as a company, we know that the forums are extremely important to some of you, and we know that some of you have put a lot (!!!!) of effort into building up the community here, especially those who have written the more creative poetic stuff. C'mon, how many of you have > 5,000 posts, raise your hands. That amount of effort is *staggering*. Seriously, I think the highest post count I've seen was ~8400? Over 2.5 years, that'd be like 10 posts EVERY DAY since AG2 launched.
The effort of migrating that much data from AG2 to AG3 is almost as staggering, since the guy who wrote the AG2 forum software didn't make it terribly efficient, and the way we're linking accounts, etc., between the two systems might cause problems. Trying to migrate it to AG3 will be a pretty big job, and it will probably fall in my lap since I'm sorta the database guru around here, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's up to me whether I want to do it or not. If Dan says do it, I do it.
Whether we start over, and wipe everything, and build a new forum engine, or implement someone else's forum software, remains to be discussed internally because it's not a critical feature for us yet. That doesn't mean it's not important to us, it just means we have to get core features working like, y'know, logging in.
Will we migrate old posts into the new forum software? It depends whether we can find an easy way to make the old forum data compatible. Nothing's *impossible* but it's also not practical for us to spend development time (read: dollars) for us to spend a big amount of effort trying to sort stuff out so it's all perfect and pristine.
If we start over with forum posts, will we archive the old forums? Again, nothing's impossible, but I can't answer that right now.
What will happen to your armor points for forum posts? Well, since armor points are also up in the air regarding the same sort of "wipe vs migrate" discussions, I can't answer that question right now either.
Please direct people asking about the future of AG2 forums to this thread if they start asking questions in other forums/threads. I'll post updates to this thread as I have more information.
i think that after a specific point in time, a thread that hasn't been commented on for lets say, 32 months, the thread is automaticly shut down, gone or in other words, doesnt exist anymore.... or if a thread is locked, it'll shut down in lets say 5 months?
tell me if you think this is a good idea or a bad idea.
Auto-locking threads that are about a year old is a decent idea, however, I don't like the idea of deleting them if they are old, which is what "doesn't exist anymore" is implying. I'd rather be able to see locked and old threads still in the forum because you never know, it might be worth unlocking and posting in, it makes the forums larger, and is something some people like reading through. If you were to delete every locked thread or old thread that hasn't been posted in for a while, that'll make the forums look smaller and it's erasing memories. It's like burning pictures that are two years old. Why do it? It's good to have those memories. Also, people will lose posts if you delete them.
There's no AP for community involvement in AG3. I also don't see why threads should get automatically deleted if they are old or if they are locked. Why do you want all those threads to get deleted?
What space? There's no limit on the space, so that's no reason to delete them. It's not like deleting them will free up space. They make the forum look larger and it's good for history. I don't see how they are bothering you, they're just there. So, from this, I suppose we should delete history now? Such as history books, all that old stuff.
why would u want to look at threads that were last spoken/locked 2 years ago?
Read above.
why would you want to look at a thread that is 2 years old about a games that came out 2 years ago?
What space? There's no limit on the space, so that's no reason to delete them. It's not like deleting them will free up space. They make the forum look larger and it's good for history. I don't see how they are bothering you, they're just there. So, from this, I suppose we should delete history now? Such as history books, all that old stuff.
1) i NEVER EVER said it bothered me 2) i never talked about burning history books 3) why NOT delete the old posts... i know that theres more space, but, they're just posts that have nothing to do with things NOW.... thats what im talking about NOW
From this conversation, I beg to differ. You want them to be deleted, so they must bother you in some way.
i never talked about burning history books
It's an analogy. If you want to delete history, such as old threads on AG, then it can apply to other things as well.
why NOT delete the old posts... i know that theres more space, but, they're just posts that have nothing to do with things NOW.... thats what im talking about NOW
Nothing to do with things now? Those posts have something to do with things now, such as the old stickied threads, they have something important to do with things now. And also, people typed up those posts, may they be quality or just quick posts, you shouldn't delete them just because you don't like seeing all those pages of threads.
How else are we going to conclude that people keep asking the same questions all over? Nah, for most topics it always at least half fun to look through what people (and yourself) decided to reply. I would perhaps, if we are so lucky that the forums are cleared/we get new new forums for AG3, delete the neverending questions on how the site works, how to do whatever and all those newbie questions after a few days. The questions are most likely already answered in stickies (or the help page, may it be helpful), and there is actually no reason to keep them up afterwards. Anything else, I wouldn't want to clear out so quickly.
Besides, especially in the art sections, you would have works of art and imagination, that would be removed without a second thought. That wouldn't be fair. Just because something is locked or isn't active any more, doesn't mean it stops being important or of any use.
Just because something is locked or isn't active any more, doesn't mean it stops being important or of any use.
i never said that.... all i said in my first post was that this is just an idea.... an idea. just that nothing else... and then ghostofmatrix over here has to start a argument.
i never said that.... all i said in my first post was that this is just an idea.
Uh, read this: why NOT delete the old posts... i know that theres more space, but, they're just posts that have nothing to do with things NOW.... thats what im talking about NOW
That implies they're not important.
all i said in my first post was that this is just an idea.... an idea. just that nothing else... and then ghostofmatrix over here has to start a argument.
Oh, so you just want to post things without people questioning or discussing them? Oh, well, I have an idea! Delete the forums! No forums for AG3!
