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There's a magazine?
I’d argue that that’s still overkill. For all that people complain on here I’ve seen forums that are complete shit-tips by comparison to STW. As soon as you allow ‘click here for nested quotes’ even just two levels deep, the signal-to-noise ratio goes down the toilet.
@cougar2 being able to directly quote full stop would be fine.
Ie. A quote box with the user and post directly linked
+reply for multiples that you can stack then deal with when you're done rather than scrolling up and down trying to find the post you want to reply to.
But the user and link is the most important bit, means people will be actually be able to keep track of what's been said by who.
Went to subscribe (digital version). It does not seem to have an option NOT AUTO RENEW every year. Or am I missing an option somewhere.
Gonna check that out again.
Is there a timeline for the new database? I find that I now tend to avoid visiting STW as the slowness is so off-putting.
Posting or editing a message is even worse.
Yes, the massive pause before anything happens is really annoying. I'd got the impression the new database was weeks away rather than anything longer, though?
I’d got the impression the new database was weeks away rather than anything longer, though?
I heard it would be ready on Friday afternoon.
The slowness is due to the bloated nature of the current forum. We are preparing to alunch a new forum on new software called WPFORO in the coming days. Although there will a be a new forum we aren't expecting a big improvement in the site speed for logged in users at launch. This is becuase for a short time the two systems (old forum and new forum) will still exist side by side. Even though our plan is to close the old forum to new posts we still expect that it's very presence as an active bit of software will impinge of the site speed. BUT, we will be turning it off asap. The wait will be while we manage the site search maps that Google indexes.
Simplified.. Google currently has links in it's database to the pretty much the entire Forum going back to 2008. If we just delete the old forum then hundreds of thousands of links in Google's database will be broken. That could devastate our google ranking and with over half our traffic coming from Google we have to manage that carefully. There are ways to manage issues like this so that Google doesn't cut us off, but it's tricky.
TLDR: New forum coming very soon. It will be different and great but it might still be slow. After a short while we'll delete the old forum and then it will be fast.
Will the old posts/threads be moved to the new forum, or deleted entirely?
It would be a shame if much of it was lost (some won't be missed 😉 ) and there's a lot of useful info buried in the forum. I'm often amused when a random Google search brings up a STW thread!
If the old content is being kept, then will the URLs to the threads change? If they're different, couldn't the old URLs just be redirected to the new versions to keep Google happy, and then turn the old forum off straight away?
We are migrating the entire forum over the the new one. So the 17 years of history will not be lost. As you point out, the urls will likely have to change. The new forum has a different url structure to this one. Usually when you change the url of a page you can add a redirect instruction that tells any browsers hitting the old url to go to the new one. Google actually doesn't like it when you set up too many of these. To use that method we'd have to set up hundreds of thousands of redirect instructions. So we are still to work out the best startegy for this. It may be that we have to take a google hit on the chin and hope google reindexes the new forum quickly. We could take a big traffic hit but we may just need to accept that and deal with it. Rock and a hard place and that.
Will the Picolax thread be preserved?
Just buy the paperback and keep it yourself.
I'm waiting for the audio book, I'm assured it will be ready as soon as Charles Dance can shoehorn it into his busy schedule.
the urls will likely have to change
Spare a though for all those broken links on Pistonhead threads
It may be that we have to take a google hit on the chin and hope google reindexes the new forum quickly. We could take a big traffic hit but we may just need to accept that and deal with it. Rock and a hard place and that.
When we migrated to a new website at work, our marketing/digital team were super-protective of their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to maintain its decent rankings in searches. Absolutely need to preserve this - that's the one thing I took from the process as a tech outsider.
That plus preserving the Picolax thread are all that matter TBH.
Things are rather sprightly tonight. Has a brave new world begun without me?
It must have started without me as well...still big pauses when loading
To use that method we’d have to set up hundreds of thousands of redirect instructions
Really ? Does it not just need one rule to convert one format to the other (assuming that the old URL contains enough to load the thread in the new format). Sounds possible to me given the title is the URL and the method for generating the current URL title portion will be known. Looks to be a simple look up from one to the other.
Just one thing - will we finally be able to use emoji’s from our own keyboards? While I have my own source, it’s a bit of a faff accessing and using them. [img] 
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If I pay is it faster?
No, I'm back to cow running backwards through treacle speeds this morning.
Does it not just need one rule to convert one format to the other
Or, more usefully:
So the 17 years of history will not be lost.
Thanks @Mark !
I've been meaning to ask for a while, and sure others have: Will we get our forum post history back in our profiles? Threads started, replies created? Mine disappeared months ago, thought it was a temporary glitch at the time.
Have the Hamsters been given steroids and EPO?!!
Seems to load a bit faster for me today! Yay!!
Will we get our forum post history back in our profiles? Threads started, replies created? Mine disappeared months ago, thought it was a temporary glitch at the time.
Read the sticky. This question has been asked and answered a dozen times over. The short answer is yes.