Equestrian and Horse Racing Fora to be merged

convert

Pretty much as it says in the title.

Unfortunately, and despite our [the mods'] best efforts, the powers-that-be have decided that the Equestrian and Horse Racing fora are to be merged. They are of the opinion that all things 'equestrian' should be together rather than having them split into a number of different fora. Although originally suggested as having 'Equestrian' a sub-forum of Horse Racing, we managed to convince the powers that be to retain the Equestrian Forum in it's own right, so therefore, as and from Monday, the Equestrian forum will now be known as 'Equestrian and Horse Racing'.

I hope everyone will continue to support the non-racing side of things and to post as normal.

On behalf of my co-mods, I'd like to thank you for your support over the years, and look forward to seeing you all in our brand new and shiny forum next week.

Convert

Jemmy

Thanks mods for trying, two different worlds imho but hey the powers that be have decided.

Sparks

Unfortunately, it's something you will have to cope with Jemmy. Forums don't look like they cost anything, but in actual fact they do - disk space is cheap, but RAM on a server isn't, nor is having to provision more server capacity, and every extra forum generates load on the server farm due to the way vBulletin is written (it's due to a really underoptimised SQL table schema, for those interested). Boards already runs almost two dozen machines to cope with the site at the moment. Having the two forums combined doesn't solve any problems on its own, but it does help a little - and since all we've seen from HR in the last few weeks has been complaints and general noise, the decision was taken to merge the two. Similar reviews are underway for other forums at the moment.

mike65

So this odd couple have to co-habitate while Mustard and Bouncy Castles continue?

copacetic

this looks like it has to be an aprils fool, except it was started after midday? lollers at the 'cost' excuse though, if it's an aprils fool thats a good one..

Sparks

Mustard as a forum was never really going to last, it's also slated to be wound down or merged into Cooking. It was really more a PR gag than a real forum (listen to Darragh's interview a while back to see what I mean - it's the whole "we'll talk about anything" line). I'm not sure what the story is with Bouncy Castles, but I'd expect the admins will make the same decision there based on usage statistics. In a few months, if funding can be found, we can get new server capacity provisioned and bring these forums back; but for the moment we've got to tighten our belts, so to speak.

edit: Sorry, this is the interview I was referring to above:
http://digitalmarketingschool.com/index2.php?id=00026&area=interviews

mike65

Don't forget the Spurs Supporters Forum

copacetic

from a quick glance there must be 50-100 way less used forums than either of these ones? There are 10 in the sys category alone..

Must be just a late aprils fool prank attempt? Although clearly the Hasselhoff and Norris forums should also be combined with these two to create the

Equestrian and Horse racing forum brought to you by The NorrisHoff.

Sparks

I think most of the Soccer forums are relatively safe for the moment! Most of the consolidation being considered is for relatively inactive forums. Only a few forums are being looked at other than those, and they'd be so logically connected that they might as well be merged anyway.

liah

Em.. wouldn't it be more logical to have Horse Racing as a subforum of Equestrian..?

convert

liah wrote: »

Em.. wouldn't it be more logical to have Horse Racing as a subforum of Equestrian..?

Horse Racing has more traffic than the Equestrian forum, so if we did go down the subforum route, Equestrian would have ended up the subforum.

Sparks

liah wrote: »

Em.. wouldn't it be more logical to have Horse Racing as a subforum of Equestrian..?

As convert said, HR wouldn't have been the subforum. Unfortunately, either way it wouldn't have helped as much. Subforums are a lighter load on the server, but not by very much; actually merging the forums eases the load more thanks to the badly denormalised SQL tables that the vBulletin software is using at the moment (that's one of the fixes the development will be working on in the next few weeks).

The only other solution (rejected) was to go down the route of twitter and limit post sizes to 140 characters.

The admins ruled this straight out but how do you feel about it?

convert

Deleted User wrote: »

The only other solution (rejected) was to go down the route of twitter and limit post sizes to 140 characters.

The admins ruled this straight out but how do you feel about it?

wed nly v ndd up w psts n txt spk - tnk abt it! :eek:

/translation:
We'd only have ended up with posts in text speak - think about it! :eek:

UrbanSea

Deleted User wrote: »

The only other solution (rejected) was to go down the route of twitter and limit post sizes to 140 characters.

The admins ruled this straight out but how do you feel about it?

Anything would be better than that.

convert

See here for further information.

Ave Sodalis

convert wrote: »

See here for further information.

So it is a joke then??

UrbanSea

No he sent the link to further baffle us.
Come Monday,we'll be seeing the
'Equestrian and Horse Racing Forum'.

Sparks

/facepalm

Seriously? We'd require you to have posts of only 140 characters or less?


[officialcatmod]Yes, this was an april fool's joke, there are no plans to merge the two forums and the server is not running hot enough to cook eggs on just yet[/officialcatmod]

thegoodoutdoors

Ave Sodalis

Oh good! There would be war if the two were merged! You'd need loads of mods to keep peace!

lordgoat

Good One! ..... tumbleweed....

byhookorbycrook

fell for it ...