Server Maintenance- Global Archive Pre 2007

[MLG_JV]

I think its a testament to our community how we are continually growing. One of the effects of this has been the consistent growth and exponential increase in the size of our database for all our posts, users, and stored information. And unfortunately this has caused an increased level of strain on vBulletin.

So we had to look for ways to help minimize this without sacrificing anything essential to our community. The result was we decided the best way to go about it was to archive all topics (and posts in them) from 2007 and older that have not been touched since then. That means if you had your favorite regional topic that was created in 2004 but everyone still posts in it it will remain active. In addition post counts will NOT be affected by this archiving and will remain the same.

Majority of the archiving should be completed by now with the rest finishing up by this weekend.

If anyone feels a topic was inadvertently archived and should not have been (Stickies that were closed are likely the only thing that should fall under this category). Please post in the discussion thread what it was and what sub-forum it was located in and we will restore it from the archive.

All this should reduce our database size by roughly 35%, leading to a more stable and speedy experience for all. In addition, everything will be archived and I hope as technology progresses/our server farm expands/and mainly VB improves itself to restore it at some point.

In the meantime thanks for understanding that this was a concession we had to make and the best possible option.

Discuss

 

[thegreatkazoo]

Is this means no 502s, then I am all for it.

 

[GwJ]

I asked myself why this wasn't being done when I joined like two years ago. I go to another forum where they split threads at 100 posts (This part I disliked), but then they purged their recycle bin (where the split threads go) every year to keep the server good.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Why not prune inactive accounts as well? In anther forum I visit occasionally, they prune any accounts that have not been active for 3 years or more, to keep the site running smoothly and to open up usernames again.

 

[MLG_JV]

Is this means no 502s, then I am all for it.

Yeap, thats the goal!

Why not prune inactive accounts as well? In anther forum I visit occasionally, they prune any accounts that have not been active for 3 years or more, to keep the site running smoothly and to open up usernames again.

We talked about it. But when it comes down to it, there have been users that haven't posted in a long time that do pop back up and we do not want to completely kill their account. That said user accounts are such a small part of our overall database it would not make much of a difference. At the same time many of their posts will fall into this archive category anyway so moving much of these users posts will still make a sizable contribution to the reduction.

I asked myself why this wasn't being done when I joined like two years ago. I go to another forum where they split threads at 100 posts (This part I disliked), but then they purged their recycle bin (where the split threads go) every year to keep the server good.

Yea we are pretty fortunate to have a very robust MLG supported server farm which has helped carry us to this point. But VB itself has gotten more and more taxed dealing with the size of our database leading to some slowness, 502s, etc where we just had to do something.

 

[Mic_128]

Why not prune inactive accounts as well? In anther forum I visit occasionally, they prune any accounts that have not been active for 3 years or more, to keep the site running smoothly and to open up usernames again.

We actually just did this, removing accounts that had 0 posts, last activity and join date both being over six months ago.

 

[Sephiroths Masamune]

Why not erase banned accounts? No one uses them and they just take up space.

 

[GwJ]

That'd be good unless SWF gas a policy on banned users coming back, but idk. Ive seen keeping them there as a punishment so they can't get their old names back.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

We actually just did this, removing accounts that had 0 posts, last activity and join date both being over six months ago.

Ah, so this is why some social groups now have no owner, and an invisible member marked onto their member list. I was wondering about that.

 

[uhmuzing]

It definitely feels faster. Kind of wierd, though, how the site seems to feel a bit emptier as well. Is there a way to find anything that was archived?

 

[Zatchiel]

We actually just did this, removing accounts that had 0 posts, last activity and join date both being over six months ago.

Would the same have been done with my account? I didn't take note of my membership here until December, 6 months after my join.

 

[Azua]

I say we just get rid of people who haven't completed registration from 6 months ago and before. They can always re-register, but at the same time they're not taking up space with an account they can't even use.

 

[rhan]

Is this the reason avatars aren't working at the moment?

 

[GwJ]

Avatars are working.