Repost of comments posted on 1st March..............
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Everything on the forum is held in a database... every post, every word, every member, every smiley etc. etc.
As the forum grows, so does the database... and that brings with it a number of issues which we are trying to avoid before they happen.
First off, the larger the database gets, the longer the forum takes to load. In areas where there are many thousands of posts, the system has to count them all before it can display the page in order to be able to show things like the pagination of topics, the top posters lists, etc. Clearly, the bigger the database, the longer this process takes.
The larger the database gets, the longer and more demanding searches become... same reasons as above... if you search for 'roofrack', the system has to go through every single post looking for matches.
The database is backed-up on a daily basis to ensure that in the event of a major failure, we don't loose too much content. Once again, the larger this is... the longer it takes and the more bandwidth this consumes.
Now clearly, it is in everyone's interest to archive and index all the useful posts, technical advice, hints & tips, etc... but there is little merit in archiving 10,000 posts with nothing more than
:lol:
in them.
For this reason, some of the topics on the forum have a system called 'auto-pruning'. This checks on a daily basis to see if there are topics which have not been replied to for a certain number of days. If they have not, they are removed from the database.
Auto pruning is carried out on the time-relevant areas of the site, such as the wanted and for sale sections, and on the (no offence meant) less-relevant areas of the site like the jokes topics.
As Datalas mentioned, the way the post counts are handled by the system is a little odd (but is there for a sane technical reason)... it keeps a rough total of your post count, and an accurate one. The one next to your name and avatar is the rough total... it is also the one on which your rank is based. The figure shown in the top posters list at the bottom of the main screen is the accurate figure and is kept properly up to date.
Every once in a while, the 'temporary' post counts are updated by the system to make sure everything is correct... at this point, your post count will *appear* to have been reduced... in reality.. it is just being corrected.
If your post count and rank are important, the best way to maintain them is to post helpful and useful content on the forum... that stuff is kept Smile
Hope that clears up any confusion
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