Suggestion:Bandwidth

[Jarnhamar]

Regarding the bandwidth problem I had an idea.

In some cases, mostly questions in recruiting, the same questions get asked over and over and over.
Can I be in the JTF right away. Can i join the army even though i'm addicted to pot. How long does it take to get in. Whats life like in the army. Whats the routine. What should I do with my kit. What gun do i get.  etc..

We'll either give them a short answer followed by a few more people answering, we'll tell them to do a search and lock the thread or an argument will develop.  I'd say 99% of the questions have been asked and answered with a few good posts or in the FAQ. What if the staff members over time went through all the old threads and if
-The question has been answered in the FAQ
-It degraded into a dumb argument
-The person was told to do a search and thread locked
We delete the thread.  Theres no reason to have 30 threads about how to join the JTF and 40 threads arguing about pot and how dumb the CF rules are. I think over time we could free up a lot of space maybe.

For threads from guys like legionare which is just basically a dumb post followed by an argument, we can delete them. Same with other useless posts.
If someone asks a question thats been already asked and answered maybe we can point them in the right direction, lock the thread for a few days and then delete it all together. 

We can tell people to 'use the search!' until were blue int he face and they will still take the easy way and just post a new question. Maybe if theres only a few hits (no pun intended) on "Drugs in the CF"  compared to 140 threads, they will be more apt to find answers to their own questions instead of starting new threads?

I think it will save bandwidth and clean up some of the clutter and junk.
Just a thought.

 

[Cpl. Williamson]

Great Idea Saves Bandwidth Makes Site Function Better Keeps Sapper Williamson Happy

Everyone Wins ;D

 

[Piccillo]

Im sorta new to these forums, and i was one of the dumb posters not to long ago

but i think this is a good idea, but combine similar posts that deal with similar..yet different issues. joniing, or army life, or drug use, or wahtever the case may be. Combine them into one "super post" and delete all the replys that are redundant.

of course, that would take much longer.

I think its a good idea none-the-less.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

As long as we're sure the questions are fully answered.  I do the same culling of my own forum - especially time sensitive stuff - "hey great show on TV tonight on Underwater Snipers" can be deleted as soon as the program hits the air.

 

[McG]

We'll either give them a short answer followed by a few more people answering, we'll tell them to do a search and lock the thread or an argument will develop. I'd say 99% of the questions have been asked and answered with a few good posts or in the FAQ. What if the staff members over time went through all the old threads and if
-The question has been answered in the FAQ
-It degraded into a dumb argument
-The person was told to do a search and thread locked
We delete the thread. Theres no reason to have 30 threads about how to join the JTF and 40 threads arguing about pot and how dumb the CF rules are. I think over time we could free up a lot of space maybe.

I think if you were to take this approach, you should also take the step of merging all the threads of a given theme that contain intelligent conversation. 

i think this is a good idea, but combine similar posts that deal with similar..yet different issues. joniing, or army life, or drug use, or wahtever the case may be. Combine them into one "super post" and delete all the replys that are redundant.

I would avoid multi-themed threads.  They may provide one-stop shopping for a few, but a lot of people will skip the thread if they are not interested in all the themes.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

My idea would be to start deleting some of the older, and/or not relevent photo's and maybe list a thread of places that host pictures.

 

[McG]

Does it take more/less bandwidth to load a picture into a post as opposed to linking to it in the Army.ca photo album?

 

[Michael OLeary]

Does it take more/less bandwidth to load a picture into a post as opposed to linking to it in the Army.ca photo album?

Eiether way it uses Mike's bandwidth each time someone downloads the pic. The best approach is to load the photo into an independent picture hosting site, or on personal webspace (most ISPs ofer a small amount of space), and then link to it. That way all the Arny.ca server handles is the link, rather than the photo itself.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Hi all,

Thanks for the ideas and discussion. I think the idea is great, but the execution may be a challenge. I.E. the mods are already very busy, and asking them to review all existing posts (we just broke 100,000!) would be a bit much.

Lance Wiebe amazingly went through the old archives and culled out the spam and useless posts, which was an awesome job, but I can't expect that sort of time commitment from everyone...

Maybe we need to start recruiting some "clean-up" volunteers...

P.S. McG, photos attached to a post are only visible in that post. Photos uploaded to the album are viewable there as well. So while the bandwidth is about the same, it's more a question of scope: does the photo have context outside the thread?

 

[Scratch_043]

I would like to volunteer for cleanup, anything to help the site run more smoothly.

I don't have a whole lot of free time, but I will contribute what I can.

 

[Lexi]

I'll gladly volunteer, I have waaay too much time on my hands as it is. 

Also I have another suggestion, what about account cleanups?
Accounts that are inactive for say more than 6 months and that have no unread PM's can be deleted.

Cheers,
Lex

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Thanks guys, I appreciate that... I'll see if I can put together some notes and then start hiring help.

Account cleanups are easy, just a few clicks and I can get rid of accounts that haven't been logged into for a specific period of time. Cleaning out old posts (without getting rid of useful info) is what's more time consuming...

 

[McG]

I'll offer some of my time aswell.

 

[McG]

. . . one last thought on the photos.  I've seen Army.ca photos linked to from other BB.  You get some addvertisment through the logo on each photo, but could you reduce bandwidth by installing an anti-hotlink program?  Something that will just put up a small site banner?

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Thanks guys... I still need to figure out the best approach here, but definitely appreciate the offer to help! Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow to organize this.

As for the photos, I've already put anti-hotlink measures in place, so you should just get a little "Please don't hotlink" image in those cases. Are you seeing evidence to the contrary?

 

[MikeM]

I'm all for the idea of removing the repetitive posts and providing a short answer and directing the new ones to the FAQ's. I'm not too sure what the registration page says, but maybe we could work something in that gives a rough oultine of what to do before making a post.. forgive my ignorance if something like that already exists in the registration page.

 

[McG]

There are several stickies in the recruiting forum.

 

[Jarnhamar]

As well in the recruiting form, what about taking all the "I got the call, i hate waiting, i got my interview!, i made it in! I cant wait to get in!" posts and lump them into one thread? Like a "You made it" thread or something.
This might save a little bandwith but i think it will really help lessen the clutter and if actual questions don't get pushed back to page 6 or 7 then someone just joining the site might see the question they want to ask and go over it instead of starting a new thread.

I'm as happy for people who finally make it in as the next guy but i think we should cut down on all the repetitive posts.

 

[McG]

I think more than just recruiting could use a cleaning . . . but without destroying content.

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Um, I'm not done yet Mike.  It is a big job, and I'm only devoting about four or five hours a week to it.  That's all I can spare at the moment.  But, I am making headway cleaning up the mail thing.  I think I have dropped your topics by a few thousand!

I'll keep plugging away at it.

BTW, the pages in the mail have gone from over 400 to less than two hundred now!  I should be able to get it to 150 or maybe even less.  We'll see.