- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. I hope nobody minds I talk tech for a little bit.
The most efficient way I have found of creating forums is to have 3 tables in the database, + 1 for users. This is just main, raw data here, in the real world you would need many more. But if you strip down all the extras, this is what a forum has.
Tables:
***************************
* forum_categories // Holds the categories. I.E, New Mombasa, Flood, Septagon.
* forum_topics // Holds topics, I.E, The Power of Spam.
* forum_posts // Holds posts, such as this one: Database Structure for Forums
***************************
Now, if I was to delete a forum post, it would have no effect on any of the rest of the site. Queries are normally run with a while loop. The program continues to print posts related to the topic until it either has no more posts, or it is time to print the 'next page' link.
If I was to delete a forum topic, I would have three options:
* Leave the posts linked to the deleted topic as before, effectively making them in "cybersleep" and of no use to anybody.
* Delete all the posts linked to the deleted topic.
* Assign them to a different topic.
Therefore, as you can see, even doing nothing to the posts after deleting a topic has no ill effect on the database that I can see. It simply takes up extra space with no return. Hardly a problem.
As for deleting posts, that is even less of a problem. Posts have nothing _under_ them. Delete one, and it is gone, and nobody knows it existed.
There must be something wrong in my theology here, and I would love to be enlightened. I plan to make a career out of dynamic websites, and learning the ins and outs of them is the way I spend a considerable amount of my time.
On a related note, as for max of 5 posts, I too find that restrictive. I have already made 4 worthwhile posts today, and they were all quite long. But I still plan to make more.
- Yolegoman
[Edit: I had a few typos here and there. I apologize.]
[Edited on 6/21/2004 1:40:46 PM]