Long threads

Former_MSE_Andrea

Afternoon everyone!

Just so you're aware, as there have been some queries raised, the last six months to a year we've been trying to make sure threads don't go past 10,000 posts because this can potentially cause problems on our servers and slow down thread loading for forum users.

We have an automatic system set up that sends the editorial team members a large thread warning when threads reach 5,000 and then 10,000 posts and anywhere between these figures we sometimes ask the board guides to start new threads so that we don't have to reach the 10,000 figure.

I hope that makes sense.

Any questions just ask and I'll try to answer where possible, despite my limited techie knowledge!

Andrea

fermi

Thanks Andrea.

Having had a play with several vBulletin boards and associated mysql databases I can imagine a few reasons why long threads just possibly might cause issues with the forum software/database, but I remain a little dubious.

If Webby or one of the other techies could briefly explain then that would be a great help.

faevilangel

fermi wrote: »

Thanks Andrea.

Having had a play with several vBulletin boards and associated mysql databases I can imagine a few reasons why long threads just possibly might cause issues with the forum software/database, but I remain a little dubious.

If Webby or one of the other techies could briefly explain then that would be a great help.

the main reasons i can see is the querying for the 10,000 replies would take a while and doing this often will put a load on the database. All the replies are stored in the database, and if 10,000 people want to read the 10,000 replies in a thread, thats 100,000 rows of data in the database to be read, also it makes it hard for someone to go back and read through the thread, e.g. for some vital knowledge... the admin need to have a line between keeping all the data in one thread and the functionality of the forum...
maybe the new upgrades will help eliviate this?? (spelling mistake there ?)

fermi

Fair enough, but does a 5,000+ posts thread really put that much stress on a server?

Each request for a page of 20-40 replies should return just that. Parsing and entire thread of a few 1000 post to do that is nuts. No sensible system would do that.

blind-as-a-bat_2

fermi wrote: »

Fair enough, but does a 5,000+ posts thread really put that much stress on a server?

Each request for a page of 20-40 replies should return just that. Parsing and entire thread of a few 1000 post to do that is nuts. No sensible system would do that.

I have to agree fermi, unless it has something to do with finding those 20-40 replies in 5-10 k threads

Might be, depending on how vB parses the database to get to those posts, just a thought.

i cant see why though as most mysql requests go straight to the location that has been requested, unless i have got it all wrong and it has to start at 1 until it gets to say 3520, but that does not make sense

robt_2

To be fair it does appear to be a weakness of vBulletin - I know of other large sites who split threads once they reach so many thousand posts for performance reasons.