overgrown forum

what do u do with thousands of posts lakhs possibly

[sunandoghosh]

I was just wondering what happesn to the forum when it grows in size...i mean thousands of posts with thousands of registered members...

apart from archiving what options we have...what do webmasters do with overgrown forums...do they simply delete older posts?//

[larryhatch]

Hello Sunandogwash:

I can only offer general ideas, no technical solutions.

IF you can filter out submissions by name, I would manually
determine which contributors are not worth reading.
Every group has those, it is up to you to make those decisions.

Some threads go around in circles forever. Those could be deleted
by topic or discussion name.

Some threads go wildly off-topic. Those could be deleted.

In all cases above, the oldest submissions get axed first.

Save all deleted postings offline. Archive disks or whatever.
Its dumb to endlessly keep tons of junk on your host ISP.

Best wishes - Larry

[FourDegreez]

I used to simply delete old posts, and later I really regretted it. =( Archive, don't delete.

[GaryK]

If your database and web server can handle the size and load leave the posts active.

Doing so makes it much easier to search for what you want and has proven invaluable on my forums where information/suggestions/tips never get outdated.

If searching isn't important then in my opinion the next best thing is to archive posts that are older than whatever date you decide on.

[rogerd]

An "overgrown" forum sounds like a problem many forum owners would like to have! All those old posts may be useful content and potential search engine traffic generators. Plus, they may be useful for members looking for information. If there is truly useless junk out there, go ahead and prune it. But otherwise, I'd do the following:

1) Be sure the content is searchable by your members and visitors.
2) Be sure the content is appropriately linked and organized for easy search engine indexing.