Ragnar
A Master From Germany
Recently the forum has been imperceptibly growing slightly. Despite the number of postings not seeming any more, registrations increase apace: the average continues at 5 - 6 a day, but some days goes up to 12; and the number of members on at American evening hours has sometimes reached 70.
With growth comes change; with change comes responsibility; with responsibility comes care; with care comes cynicism; with cynicism comes brutality... ( I could continue this a long time ).
Anyway, due both to the increased server load and the safeguarding of the databases, and the confusion caused by name changes of long-standing members, it has been decided that from now on there will be no more changes except under exceptional circumstance. Which includes stalking fears and harmonization with other boards, but for both of which some proof may be required. Such requests will only be considered by a PM to any admin who will bring it before committee.
There is a window of one month for new members to regularize their choice of names. Everyone else has been given two weeks, up to 6th February GMT to decide whether they want their name altered in any way.
Hopefully not too many will avail themselves; every change is bad news for the databases. To quote from another board which had to implement the same policy:
The biggest reason is a bunch of "nasty" SQL queries have to run on the DB servers, and the database for the forum is just getting too big. In some cases, a username change can seize up (meaning no one can use that server for the forum) a DB server for 5-10 minutes. Forces a few full table scans on many gigabytes of data.
So from now on, you need a very, VERY good reason to change it (I can't think of a good enough reason off the top of my head, but maybe there is one).
Digital Point
With growth comes change; with change comes responsibility; with responsibility comes care; with care comes cynicism; with cynicism comes brutality... ( I could continue this a long time ).
Anyway, due both to the increased server load and the safeguarding of the databases, and the confusion caused by name changes of long-standing members, it has been decided that from now on there will be no more changes except under exceptional circumstance. Which includes stalking fears and harmonization with other boards, but for both of which some proof may be required. Such requests will only be considered by a PM to any admin who will bring it before committee.
There is a window of one month for new members to regularize their choice of names. Everyone else has been given two weeks, up to 6th February GMT to decide whether they want their name altered in any way.
Hopefully not too many will avail themselves; every change is bad news for the databases. To quote from another board which had to implement the same policy:
The biggest reason is a bunch of "nasty" SQL queries have to run on the DB servers, and the database for the forum is just getting too big. In some cases, a username change can seize up (meaning no one can use that server for the forum) a DB server for 5-10 minutes. Forces a few full table scans on many gigabytes of data.
So from now on, you need a very, VERY good reason to change it (I can't think of a good enough reason off the top of my head, but maybe there is one).
Digital Point
