Changes to the forum view

[Mike]

There have been a couple of changes to the forum view (the page you see when you view a forum).

Firstly, a cut-off period preventing threads more than 100 days old from being displayed has been applied to all forums except those under Contests and Games or Interactive, and the archive (obviously). This is to stop the site wastefully calling up information about hundreds of threads you are unlikely to want to view. Nevertheless, you can override this option via Display Settings, below and to the left of the list of threads.

The second change pertains to a new type of thread pagination. Previously, if a thread spanned more than 3 pages, it would only display "1 2 3 Last Page". I've replaced this with a smarter method which will either show you "1 (2 3 4 5 6)" in threads of up to six pages, or "1 2 3 ... [n - 1] [n]", in threads greater than six pages, where n is the last page. If you click the ellipsis (i.e. "..."), you'll also be presented with a dialog which can take you to any page of your choosing. Overall, I think this makes more sense than the old method and is more user-friendly, though any feedback is appreciated as always.

[Daniel]

Firstly, a cut-off period preventing threads more than 100 days old from being displayed has been applied to all forums except those under Contests and Games or Interactive, and the archive (obviously).

I don't really see the point - it just annoys me. Unless it saves a major amount of bandwidth, I think it's just a nuisance.

[Mike]

It saves memory and CPU time, not bandwidth. We have a history of consistently exceeding our allotted memory/CPU limits, so anything which helps mitigate this problem can be considered a good thing (although since our hosting company moved us to a new physical machine a few weeks ago, we have been running very efficiently for the most part).

[Daniel]

Ahh okay.

*changes defaults*