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This topic has moved here: Subject: So, like, should the forums be changed?
  • Subject: So, like, should the forums be changed?
Subject: So, like, should the forums be changed?
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Here was what I originally posted: http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2903321

Turns out I posted it in the wrong forum... in my defence I hadn't got a clue what the seventh column was/is... I looked for a site discussion forum, but dammit, if you use what are obscure terms like that, what am I supposed to do?

Anyway, back on topic, ahem, yes, now that its been pointed out to me that this forum is in fact a third-party one... didn't see the 'powered by' bit at the bottom! (lets not speak any more of my mistake!), I'll rephrase my question.

I find these forums tricky to use, I find finding responses to my posts difficult, but I also find forums such as phpbb and invision power boards alot easier. They're incredibly easy to install, have much more features, etc. etc.

Now, the problem with such a move would mean that maybe your gamertags/bungie.net login wouldn't be linked to your forum wotsit. And also current posts may be lost, they may not, I don't know because I know nothing about the current boards.

Either way, I think a different forum would work alot better, it would mean things were easier to discuss too, because currently many conversations come to an abrupt end due to people not being able to find them again.

People, for or against? And your reasons.

  • 04.04.2005 9:21 AM PDT

Ach! Was ist los?

I think it's the number of users, rather than the codebase, that causes problems.

In any case, I think that the forum system here has been replaced enough times already. It just needs a search function and a few more moderators.

  • 04.04.2005 9:57 AM PDT

Discipline is my Sword,
Faith is my Shield,
Do not leap blindly into uncertainty,
And you may live to reap the rewards.

"The Important Thing Is To Never Stop Questioning,"

Posted by: egor
Now, the problem with such a move would mean that maybe your gamertags/bungie.net login wouldn't be linked to your forum wotsit. And also current posts may be lost, they may not, I don't know because I know nothing about the current boards.


If you dont know anything about the current Forums how can you say any kind of argument against them. tru7h is, this topic has been brought up so many times it makes me want to slap every new person who asks it. These Forums were not just thrown in uyou know. Bungie took into consideration the ammount of infomation that would be going through these forums and picked the best set up they could. Achronos has already commented on this more than once and made the kid who thought he knew what he was talking about look straight stupid, so I'm just gonna leave the technicl stuff to him. I dont know as much about it has he does, and IM certainly not going to come to a Bungie website, controled by MICROSOFT, and think I know how to better run their forums. they have professionals who know more about this than you can even imagine. So next time you want to comment on the way things are run here, just think about that.

  • 04.04.2005 10:19 AM PDT
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Posted by: snowmanaxt
Posted by: egor
Now, the problem with such a move would mean that maybe your gamertags/bungie.net login wouldn't be linked to your forum wotsit. And also current posts may be lost, they may not, I don't know because I know nothing about the current boards.


If you dont know anything about the current Forums how can you say any kind of argument against them. tru7h is, this topic has been brought up so many times it makes me want to slap every new person who asks it. These Forums were not just thrown in uyou know. Bungie took into consideration the ammount of infomation that would be going through these forums and picked the best set up they could. Achronos has already commented on this more than once and made the kid who thought he knew what he was talking about look straight stupid, so I'm just gonna leave the technicl stuff to him. I dont know as much about it has he does, and IM certainly not going to come to a Bungie website, controled by MICROSOFT, and think I know how to better run their forums. they have professionals who know more about this than you can even imagine. So next time you want to comment on the way things are run here, just think about that.


Um, it was an open post inviting people to talk about the pros and cons, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I haven't actually said they should do anything either way, this is a "what is your opinion" thread, not a "this is my opinion, lets argue it out". I'm intrigued by the negatives of moving and the positives of the current forum. If there is a next time, please read what the thread is about and then act accordingly instead of going gung-ho and all "oh know, not this question again!" and being rather presumptious.

Back on topic. I do agree that some problems can't be coded around. I wouldn't go as far to say its the number of people though, my favourite forum has several times the number of people on these forums and no moderators, it works fantastically and 80% of discussion is mature. One reason is the ignore function of the forum... another is the subject matter which maybe just attracts more mature posters. I don't think the former would do much to solve what I perceive to be the problems on these forums. And the latter of course isn't changeable.

However, the problems of having many users such as never being able to find that thread you posted in yesterday can be solved with code.

I really wish I could read up on the technical difficulties to be had with other forums, I can certainly see how some of the other more clumsy open source efforts might put a larger load upon the server than maybe the current forums, but without Archawotsit's post I haven't got a clue how things are.

  • 04.04.2005 11:10 AM PDT
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I disagree with you entirely.

For a start, if you needed to find out what the 7th Column/Community is all about, you could have clicked on any of the link within the community tab on the bottom navbar. It takes but a minute.

Now, you say that IPB and phpBB are easy to install. Yes, they are, but that's not an issue when you see just what the web team can do with the rest of the site. Finding replies isn't difficult; just scroll down the page, as on any other Forum. I'm yet to see a search function that pinpoints individual replies, nor how that would be useful when the thread starter doesn't know what the responses will be. However, a search feature is coming, soon.

I don't see why these Forums are hard to use. They are infinitely easier than IPB and phpBB, the lack of extra luxuries such as smilies merely makes navigation easier and allows members to concentrate more on the content of the post without getting misled by such distractions. And indeed, why bother adding more features? This being a forum, it fulfills its purpose successfully. There are enough problems with users already, the last thing anybody needs is for them to be able to flood a page with smilies or giant text.

But all these points are minor in comparison to the fact that IPB and phpBB cannot handle such large amounts of traffic. That is the main reason why Bungie stick by this Forum system. They sorted out their priorities correctly.

  • 04.04.2005 11:28 AM PDT
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Well, on phpbb and IPB you simply search for your own username and replies to your posts will come up.

Is there actually going to be a search on these forums, though?

The smilies aren't really in the equation, they can be enabled or disabled with both boards, its not really an issue.

Same goes with text formatting.

I disagree with you on the replies thing. First, you have to find the thread you posted in, I may start a thread on one of the more active sections and the next day have to go scanning through page after page until I reach maybe the fifth page and may read the replies. And then one might put in a fair bit of effort into a post within a thread only to find it very difficult to find the replies to the post and even the post itself because the thread has increased in pages within a short amount of time.

The IPB forum I post on gets a ridiculously larger amount of traffic than these forums, so it is possible, but I suppose the owners there must have invested in the forum servers more, which probably isn't possible with bungie because they've got to spread their resources out over other things which could be considered more important.

I assume that this is the best option given the circumstances because the webmasters must have researched it thoroughly. I would like to know, is the current reason for there not being a search technical too? The Ideal Bulletin Board certainly seems to have an adequate search function, so it is a wee bit puzzling.

  • 04.04.2005 11:50 AM PDT
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Just want to say thanks for an informative reply. I assume the releases of ideal's product that do have a search function don't have the same .net functionality? Or you've chosen not to have the search for technical reasons.

I have to say the forum I mostly post on that I thought had to take on a greater load and runs IPB has only 500,000 members (but 12 million posts and a ridiculous amount of posts per day), so I'd say they were pretty even.

Previously I thought the .net integration wasn't such a biggie and we could do without it, but thinking about it more it'd mean less members because some people wouldn't be bothered to sign up to bungie.net and then to bungie's forums, so my original proposition probably isn't at all viable.

Thanks again!

  • 04.04.2005 1:33 PM PDT

Tom Achronos
Bungie.net Overlord
twitter: http://twitter.com/Achronos

"I have no words that would do justice to the atrocities you commit to the English language, as well as your continued assaults on the concepts of basic literacy and logical reasoning."

I'm curious - how much traffic do you think we get? I'm betting your estimate is much lower the reality. For example - you probably think we only have 12 forums. You also don't know how many active users are, and you also don't know how many "lurkers" we have. So, please stop assuming things about our load - you don't have relevant data.

Here's a small clue - to run this site, there are eight web servers. Forums are the second most popular feature. Stats are the most popular feature, but stats also have additional hardware to offload some processing - forums don't (they can't).

Anyway - the reason this doesn't have a search function is because the Ideal BB.NET (we're not using their current product, we're using the new .NET version) is because we wanted to make sure it scaled to our needs - and it takes a long time to test and tweak it, even after Ideal Science makes the base version of it for their "regular" product. A slow and crappy search is worse than no search at all.

Let's see, what else - smilies were removed because they're stupid (my call), text formatting is limited by design, and yes, the phpBB and other forum question does come up a lot, and I really wish people would stop assuming that they know more than I do on this topic without having done the research and data collection and stress tests. PHP boards suck for perf and scalability at this level. They just do.

Posted by: egor
Well, on phpbb and IPB you simply search for your own username and replies to your posts will come up.

Is there actually going to be a search on these forums, though?

The smilies aren't really in the equation, they can be enabled or disabled with both boards, its not really an issue.

Same goes with text formatting.

I disagree with you on the replies thing. First, you have to find the thread you posted in, I may start a thread on one of the more active sections and the next day have to go scanning through page after page until I reach maybe the fifth page and may read the replies. And then one might put in a fair bit of effort into a post within a thread only to find it very difficult to find the replies to the post and even the post itself because the thread has increased in pages within a short amount of time.

The IPB forum I post on gets a ridiculously larger amount of traffic than these forums, so it is possible, but I suppose the owners there must have invested in the forum servers more, which probably isn't possible with bungie because they've got to spread their resources out over other things which could be considered more important.

I assume that this is the best option given the circumstances because the webmasters must have researched it thoroughly. I would like to know, is the current reason for there not being a search technical too? The Ideal Bulletin Board certainly seems to have an adequate search function, so it is a wee bit puzzling.

  • 04.04.2005 2:49 PM PDT

Just want to say thanks for an informative reply. I assume the releases of ideal's product that do have a search function don't have the same .net functionality? Or you've chosen not to have the search for technical reasons.
IdealBB.NET has a search feature, but Tom didn't think that it was cool enough so decided to make his own.
I have to say the forum I mostly post on that I thought had to take on a greater load and runs IPB has only 500,000 members (but 12 million posts and a ridiculous amount of posts per day), so I'd say they were pretty even.
You are forgetting that this forum has over 60,000 boards (since it powers the group boards as well). That means we have a huge number of people posting a lot of stuff to many, many different boards.

Add in all the extra stuff (stats, other group stuff, content) and you have a very busy site.

The forum uses a special cache system so that the database isn't accessed every time someone wants to read a post. This is for performance, and is the reason why the forum can be so sketchy sometimes. I don't think that either IPB or phpBB would let you do this.

  • 04.04.2005 2:51 PM PDT
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When I saw the news I was thrilled. Finally a serch function, thank you thank you thank you :-)

And I know Achronos said not to speak of the un-nameable function change still, again thank you. But... (there's always a but ;-) ) I have to chance bannage to ask what is with the choices of the text colors for the staff and ninjas? Is it the hour and tired eyes or are those colors just killing everybody else's retinae too? The goldish color in Achronos' post (and presumably all Bungie Staff) is not too bad but the other used by the Forum Ninja's, what is that, pink? Or is it just my monitor and/or browser? I find it hard too look at and eye strain inducing. Not good for the posts that MUST be read.

So, nuff said, nice work and thanks except for that small text color problem .

  • 04.05.2005 12:11 AM PDT

The search function had been announced a while ago.

And it's white now ;-)

  • 04.05.2005 3:47 AM PDT