# All non-essential functions disabled



## Morrus

I have cut down the forums to their bare bones.  No avatars, no calendar, no birthday announcements, no searches, no member lists etc.  

Hopefully this will make them run a bit better.  If it works, I will start introducing the features again gradually, one at a time.  Some of the features are more intensive than others, and right now I'm not sure which ones are slowing the server down and which are not having any real effect on it.  So they're all off until further notice.


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## Left-handed Hummingbird

Indeed. Every time the page has to check with the database the more power it need. Consider disabling ratings as well.

If there are things you know, you won't turn back on for quite some time, I would also recommend editing them out of the templates as it uses power too just to check if they are on or not.

For instance the little symbol telling you whether a user is online or not in each of their posts is hardly necessary unless you plan to send private messages to them.


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## William Ronald

*I understand the situation*

Morrus:

I hope your actions help out.   The board have been unusually sluggish, and I have had to try to repeatedly post my responses. (In the case of the IR thread, it seemed very sluggish yesterday.  I kept on having the connection to the thread fail and had to try for a long time to get my post up.)

Also, on the IR thread topic, I asked Edena of Neith to talk to you and some of the other moderators.  It seems that he is having his own technical problems.

Overall, I think the boards are going well.  Since I have an IT background, I understand more than most the headaches of keeping everything running.  Keep up the good work and thanks for the efforts to keep everything going smoothly.

William


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## Galfridus

Thanks for taking this step, Morrus. To be honest, I'd rather have a bare-bones board -- even if there's enough processing power at a given point for more features, eventually the board will grow to the point where it's a problem.

FYI -- at about 3:40 PM EST I got a "server too busy" message when trying to connect.


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## Piratecat

The one feature I'd like to have immediately back is the jump-to menu at the lower left. I can't function without it!


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## Morrus

Galfridus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> FYI -- at about 3:40 PM EST I got a "server too busy" message when trying to connect. *




For the moment, I've told it to only allow 200 people at once to use the boards.  That will be the first thing I switch back to normal, before any of the features.


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## Morrus

Piratecat said:
			
		

> *The one feature I'd like to have immediately back is the jump-to menu at the lower left. I can't function without it!   *




According to the Control Panel, that's one of the mor eintensive functions.  i don't see why, myself. *shrug*

We'll make sure it's early in the list for gradual reintroduction.


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## Lazybones

Thanks for all your efforts, Morrus, so that we can have a fun place to hang out when we're shirking work!
Lazybones


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## Kid Charlemagne

I can live with out any of those features if it means I can get on the boards easily!  Limiting to 200 people might be a bit tough, but I don't know what the typical traffic patterns are.

What I do know is that noon is the busiest time; I noticed this way back when I first started my Story Hour last August.  If I posted an update by 10am, I frequently had responses by 1pm.  If I posted at 2pm, I didn't see a response till the next day.

Anything that keeps the board running smoothly during those 3-4 hours is a good thing.


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## graydoom

I can live without these features,,, but there are some I really want back .
Once you feel ready to start re-implementing features, please re-implement the drop-down list of forums in the low left that lets you jump to any forum you want, and please re-implement Who's Online. I have found it _extremely_ useful to see if the other participant in Fight Club threads is still online.


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## CRGreathouse

Do what you have to to keep the boards running, Morrus.  Persoanlly, I'd love to have searching back, at least on the Rules forum (the only place where it's really important to search).


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## Morrus

graydoom said:
			
		

> *I can live without these features,,, but there are some I really want back .
> Once you feel ready to start re-implementing features, please re-implement the drop-down list of forums in the low left that lets you jump to any forum you want, and please re-implement Who's Online. I have found it extremely useful to see if the other participant in Fight Club threads is still online. *




Who's Online and search are two very big processes - if any don't get turned back on, those are the two most likely candidates.


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## drnuncheon

I don't know how the message boards are set up or how customizable you can make them, but the only way I can think that the 'jump to forum' drop-down would be at all processor-intensive is if it's made on the fly each time.

One idea might be to replace it with a hard-coded dropdown.  You would have to change it manually every time you added a new forum, but I think that's a rare enough occurence that it wouldn't be too bad.

In case you can't tell, I'd really like that back myself. 8)

J


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## graydoom

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Who's Online and search are two very big processes - if any don't get turned back on, those are the two most likely candidates. *



I don't mind about search (I've used it all of twice, ever , but how will I live without my beautiful Who's Online!?!?



Oh well, I underswtand. But if the boards ever do quiet down, and if there ever is a bit of extra processing power... remember Who's Online .


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## Darraketh

It's not the board software right.?.  The boards a AMDMB.COM seem to handle far more traffic than we get here. They use vBulletin version 2.0.3 we have 2.2.1!

Is the latest version buggy?

We have a _new_ dedicated server; right? 
Do they have a more powerful server?

It seems to me that either the latest version of vBulletin is buggy or we did not get a powerful enough server.

We should be able to operate with _all_ the features and with 600 people logged in!

It's like buying a Ferrari and having to drive it at 35 mph all the time!

I know we have people working on the problem but this is a forum so I feel encouraged to speak my mind.


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## Darkness

graydoom said:
			
		

> *I don't mind about search (I've used it all of twice, ever , but how will I live without my beautiful Who's Online!?!?
> 
> 
> 
> Oh well, I underswtand. But if the boards ever do quiet down, and if there ever is a bit of extra processing power... remember Who's Online . *



I second that; Who's Online is a really neat feature. Besides, it's handy to coordinate between Moderators (and/or Admins).

Still, the "Buddy List" can serve these purposes - just not as well...


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## Left-handed Hummingbird

I wonder, Morrus, do you have GZip compression turned on? If you have, you are minimizing your bandwith needs, but it puts more stress on the server CPU.

That said, there are still other ways of minimizing bandwith by tinkering with the templates. On my vBulletin boards a thread list in a forum is less than 7KB. Here it's about 65KB!


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## EverSoar

I do miss the jump to forum button.  I can't function without it.  


Also, I never experience much of a problem with speed of the boards.  I guess living in Aus I use it at a time, when you are all in bed.


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## Sir Osis of Liver

As with everone one else I'm greatful for what we've got, but if it becomes pausible again I'd like to throw in support for returning the Who's online feature.

Thanks for providing such a great way for gamers to get together,
YOU DA MAN, MORRUS!


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## Henry@home

I, too, loved my jump menu. 

However, the irony of how these boards have suddenly reverted back to the look and level of features of the old UBB boards is slapping me in the face. Hopefully, these boards are more stable and easier to manage for you, Morrus, than the old UBB boards.


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## Agnostic Paladin

I can live without the jump function. Half the time I forget about it and back out to the forum lists anyhow.

The main thing I noticed was the 200 person limit. I tried getting in about 5 times over the course of the day, and this is the first time I didn't get told it was too busy.


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## Umbran

*shrug*.  Call me overly-logical, but isn't a large part of the point of a message board the ability to communicate with people no matter where they are, or what time they're around?  It would seem to me that a feature telling you who was online would be pretty far down the list of things that actually make the boards work.  

I find I don't miss things like the Avatars and .sigs.  Features like the little jump pull-down and searching are far more integral to using and getting around the site, I would think.


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## CRGreathouse

Yes, the 200-person limit is priority #1; I don't miss the avatars, either - despite using a custom avatar for my other "persona."


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## Darkness

Agnostic Paladin said:
			
		

> *I can live without the jump function. Half the time I forget about it and back out to the forum lists anyhow.*



The same goes for me, actually; I can't recall ever having used it - either here or on the old boards.


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## reapersaurus

Umbran said:
			
		

> *Features like the little jump pull-down and searching are far more integral to using and getting around the site, I would think. *



sigs are an integral part of the boards experience, IMO.
But i agree, the search is MUCH more important than any fluff features.
And i never used the jump either....   (i'll have to check it out IF it comes back)


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## MythandLore

I used almost every funtion the board (even the jump menu) had to offer until they were turned off.
Except for the Sigs.
I turned off the sigs, I donno, I just got sick of seeing them one day. 
With Avatars I really don't think they're that big a deal anyway.
Eh, whatever, the boards are running really great now without the funtions bing turned on, I think they can stay off, no big.


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## Horacio

For me the boards are good enough now... besides the 200 members limit!!!!

That limit really buggeg me yesterday. I have now a brand new ADSL connection, mainly to surf these boards at home, and I couldn't use it


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## EverSoar

I have not problems with leaving the boards how they are now.


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## Someguy

Just the limit bugs me really right now, otherwise the rest is fluff, (Cool fluff I might add)


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## Ysgarran

Left-handed Hummingbird said:
			
		

> *I wonder, Morrus, do you have GZip compression turned on? If you have, you are minimizing your bandwith needs, but it puts more stress on the server CPU.
> 
> That said, there are still other ways of minimizing bandwith by tinkering with the templates. On my vBulletin boards a thread list in a forum is less than 7KB. Here it's about 65KB! *




Which brings up a question in my mind.  Morrus do you know what the bottle neck is at the moment with the servers?  Is it really CPU bound?   Are you using up all the memory?   Or is the bandwidth?

I am curious as to what kind of machines that are in use.


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## Gez

The Jump-to menu is cool, but I can live without it. I've been used to *not* use it by the WotC boards, where is is incredibly crappy (you can jump from a forum list to another forum list, but not to specific forums... blech).

I don't mind the disappearance of avatars, who's online, rating, or most other things in fact. Except Search. I have an use for Search. I prefer Search to manually scanning a handful dozens of pages. Why not limiting Search to thread titles in a first time ? That would probably use less power than parsing whole threads.


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## Turlogh

Don't mind loosin the fluff features (wouldn't mind having them back though, especially a higher than 200 user limit), but I have a question- I keep getting logged out, I'm lookin around and suddenly I am no longer registered as loged in; anyone else having this problem?


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## BiggusGeekus

I don't mind the loss of features, myself.  But stuff can still be abused ... as my "location" clearly shows.  I'll change it tomorrow, but I'll leave it up for tonight.


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## Palcadon

Piratecat said:
			
		

> *The one feature I'd like to have immediately back is the jump-to menu at the lower left. I can't function without it!   *




I second this motion and move to only allow half a moderator into the message boards at one time to get the jump to menu back.


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## XCorvis

Heh, I'm really liking the stripped down boards. Loads ultra-fast, no wierd flashing junk all over the place, no super-long annoying signatures or avatars. I don't even miss the jump menu.

Morrus: Just disable post counts and thread ratings, and I'll be all set.


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## Grandpa

*jump-to*

I also used the jump-to menu feature constantly, but I think the pain of its absence would be greatly reduced if the "EN World Messageboards > Meta - Forums About Forums > Meta > All non-essential functions disabled"-type link were just duplicated at the bottom of each page.


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## MJEggertson

I don't really care what's here...as long as I can post, and as long as the user limit goes up. I was at about a 50% rejection rate today. Still problems, I guess.

-Mike


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## omedon

There was a jump to menu?

That sounds handy. I wish I could have used it while it was still here. Oh well, I have gotten around without it easy enough.

I am happy with the boards as long as there are boards. Keep up the good work Morrus.

And all the other moderators too of course.


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## Darraketh

I used the jump menu but as an alternative you could display the text links, that are at the top of the page, at the bottom also.

I doesn't give you the full functionality of said jump menu but I believe it causes a page reload as opposed to backing out and just getting a view of the page in your cache and it saves scrolling to the top of the page to use them for said purpose.

All of that is only really important in a very active forum like the general one.

I don't mind the stripped down version of the boards.  I doesn't let the posters personality through like it does with sigs, avatars and smilies.  The sigs area was sort of like our own mini announcement space with persistant links to storyhours, project threads, etc.

The 200 person limit is a problem with a messageboard the serves *the entire world*.


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## Ravellion

Piratecat said:
			
		

> *The one feature I'd like to have immediately back is the jump-to menu at the lower left. I can't function without it!   *




Exactly... the browsing through the threads is horrible now (Back button - Refresh? Nope, "Thanks for voting on this poll"... AAARGH!)

I also kinda like sigs... couldn't you just disallow images in sigs? I like to propagate my website! I get feedback like "Cool House rules and stuff". Alas, those days have ended ...errmmmm... smilies are missing too huh... oh well, the following will do fine:   :-(

Rav


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## Galfridus

The boards still seem to be experiencing a daily slowdown of several hours in duration, ever after the features have been turned off. Something else must be the culprit...


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## NeghVar

Well,

Even after turning everything off...this forum is still a bear. It takes anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes for the next window to open, and half of the time I either get a server busy error or a 404 error. To tell you the truth, I am uncertain if turning all the bells and whistles off did anything?

Hope a fix is found soon.

Later!
Art


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## Darraketh

I am going to miss these boards.  Sure I'll pop in few months down the road to see if it's all been straightened-out but in the meantime this will free up a spot for one of the chosen "200" posters.

I dare say no one likes frustration and that's what using this messageboard, as it is now, results in.

"Hey! Doc it hurts when I do this."

"Well don't do that!"


-That is all.


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## MJEggertson

Urgh.

Its now 14h40, and I've been trying to reach anything from this site since about 10h00. The whole enworld.org domain didn't seem to be working, for me. I could reach the frontpage as d20reviews.com, but nothing beyond that.


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## Piratecat

We all hate that limit, and since it isn't helping, I'm hoping we turn it off in the next few days.  Try to be patient - I know it's frustrating, and I'm sorry for that.


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## Acmite

*No Improvement*

Shutting off all the bells and whistles hasn't improved anything on my end.  If anything, the boards have become slower as a result.  In general it's taking me more than 10 times as long to load a page as last week.

Around 2pm ET it would take more than 5 minutes to load a page, and I have better than a T1 connection.

I agree with some of the others above, the problem doesn't seem to be all the features.

Acmite

**Edited for grammar and to add a little**


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## Kid Charlemagne

Piratecat said:
			
		

> *We all hate that limit, and since it isn't helping, I'm hoping we turn it off in the next few days.  Try to be patient - I know it's frustrating, and I'm sorry for that. *




Could you let us know if we know what the biggest issue is here?  Is the server just overtaxed, or does it need more memory, more bandwidth, etc?  We'd love to know at what stage of the investigation-implementation axis the issues are...


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## MJEggertson

I should re-iterate. I was having problems accessing the *whole* domain, not just the message boards. Timeouts like crazy. If I get through to the front page, then there may or may not be problems with the boards being at the user limit.

I don't think lifting that 200 limit would be wise until you figure out what's choking your server so much.


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## Viking Bastard

I've never experienced any slowdown of the boards and I'm on a 56k modem.

Loads superfast compared to the old boards.

Now, reading the boards without sigs is really, really uncomfortable. I reconise a lot of people here only by their sigs and/or avatars (I'm bad with names, I can't possibly know 'em all).

The board feels somewhat... neutered.


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## WizarDru

Perhaps the mailing feature might be the culprit?  The notification e-mails are still turned on, I notice, and perhaps they might be the cause of the performance slowdown?


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## Morrus

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Could you let us know if we know what the biggest issue is here?  Is the server just overtaxed, or does it need more memory, more bandwidth, etc?  We'd love to know at what stage of the investigation-implementation axis the issues are... *




If I knew, I'd have put it right...


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## Galfridus

Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> If I knew, I'd have put it right... *




Is there someone on "the team" who can do a load analysis of the server? 

It seems like there are no problems on nights or weekends...maybe you just need more anytime minutes.


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## Morrus

Galfridus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Is there someone on "the team" who can do a load analysis of the server?
> *




When it comes to this sort of thing, "the team", unfortunately, is me.  If I had some kind of techie wonder helping me out, I think it might have occured to me to ask him before this point. Thanks for the suggestion, though. 

What's an anytime minute?


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## Wicht

Morrus said:
			
		

> *What's an anytime minute? *




He is refering to cellular phone commercials (at least commercials here in the states) which advertise "anytime minutes" (basically a one rate plan that allows you to talk whenever and not just on week nights or weekends).


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## Morrus

Wicht said:
			
		

> *
> 
> He is refering to cellular phone commercials (at least commercials here in the states) which advertise "anytime minutes" (basically a one rate plan that allows you to talk whenever and not just on week nights or weekends). *




Ah, OK.  We have the same thing, but call it something different.


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## zouron

well of the few mindless posters here, I like to second the avatars and sigs are good. It helps give a quick overlook of who posted and such.

as for the who is online.... okay it is neat, but not really overly useful, if one need to talk in person directly to someone schedule a time and meet up in a chat room IMHO.


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## Starfox

I appreciate all the work that is going on. I just want to add my vote for Search - that ought to be the first feature re-introduced. I also love email notices.

Those were the two things I missed most when they were removed on the old Eric Noah boards.

I have my Control Panel page bookmarked, and go to my subscribed threads from there; beats that drop-down navigation panel for me.

Otherwise, I can't complain. I run these fora when most people sleep, it seems, so perormance i rarely a problem for me.

Keep up the good fight!

/Carl


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## Wicht

zouron said:
			
		

> *as for the who is online.... okay it is neat, but not really overly useful, if one need to talk in person directly to someone schedule a time and meet up in a chat room IMHO. *




You sir, obviously do not post in fight club where its not just neat to know whos online but its extremely useful.

Is there anyway to turn the feature on in only one part of the forums while leaving it off in others?


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## WizarDru

No offense, but is this a site dedicated to 3E, or to Fight Club?  I'm sure it's a great feature so you can challenge someone in real time through a message board never actually designed to do that...but for the most part it's a 'nice to have', don't you think?


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## Piratecat

Wizardru, it's dedicated to Fight Club. I thought that was obvious, duh.    Seriously, Wicht has a point and is allowed ot have an opinion; it is incredibly useful to them. Unfortunately, it's all or nothing.  For the moment, it'll have to be nothing. Let's hope a computer guru will figure out the problem!


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## Psionicist

That's a valid opinion.

Why not completely turn off all unimportant forums for a while to see if things change?

With unimporant I mean every forum except for maybe Rules, DM Stuff and possible General Disc. (unless some people decide to spam that board when all other forums are turned off *whistles*)


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## WizarDru

Oh, I understand.  I didn't mean that they couldn't have Fight Club.  Heck, more power to 'em...I think it's great.  But if I had to choose an option to turn on, I think that might rate a little lower.  But what do I know? 


Heck, I'm just getting over being frustrated with problems with my ISP and not being able to play Asheron's Call last night, due to problems with Microsoft's (*&(*@#$ .NET Passport system.


But I'm running our game tonight, so I'm in high spirits!  Huzzah.


If there's anything that we can do to help out Morrus or PC, just give a shout out...I think I speak for most when I say we'd be glad to lend a hand.  This place is the closest thing to my 'hang' on the web.  Anything we can do to help is a Good Thing (tm).


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## Green Knight

Well, personally I hope we get avatars and sigs back. At the very least avatars. I've posted on boards where people use avatars, and the difference between boards like that and boards with no images at all are pretty big. On boards with avatars, I can easily recognize a couple hundred of the posters just by looking at their images. But here, it's like the majority of posters are all a large, faceless blob. You might as well all be the same person, for the difference it makes to me, as I can't tell you all apart. 

That's the good thing about avatars. It's like the person posting has a "face". You've got a mental picture to associate the post with, and as such, you can more readily distinguish one poster from another. And of course, if you don't like to see images, then you can always modify your profile, in "Edit Options", I think it's called, where it says: 



> Show user's signatures in their posts?
> yes  no
> Show user's avatar in their posts?
> yes  no




So if you don't want to see avatars and sigs then just click on "no". But personally, I'd like to see avatars and/or sigs back as soon as possible. (Imagewise, though, I prefer avatars, as they go ALONGSIDE your post, rather than UNDER it. Which means that the thread's shorter, and you don't have to hit scroll down to much. You can always restrict the sig to just text, leaving the avatar for any images people want to use.)


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## Green Knight

Oh yeah, and get rid of the thread rating thing. It's the most useless function, ever. I don't see a SINGLE thread rated anywhere. Do any of you? And besides, what's the point? It's not as if a thread rated "5" will make me more likely to read it if the topic doesn't interest me. And what's to stop people from rating it not based on merits, but just to goof off? I just rated this thread "1". Does this mean that this thread sucks and no one ought to read it? 

I say get rid of it.


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## WizarDru

There were thread ratings, but they were turned off.  I saw that they had a value in the Story Hour forum, but Morrus and Piratecat (correctly, I think) decided to turn them off, since it might intimidate new posters, and prevent folks from posting if they didn't get a rating, or worse, got a negative one.  I'd much rather see more folks posting their stories, and the rating system is too prone to mean-spirited abuse, anywho. 

Is it still active in the other forums?  If so, I'd definitely vote to turn it off.  I don't think it's really that important.


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## CRGreathouse

I agree with the last two posetrs: get rid of thread ratings if they're not gone already!


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## Cloudgatherer

Even with all the bells and whistles turned off, the boards seem to be still running incredibly slow.  Any update as to what is going on here?


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## drowdude

I would like to see the avatars and sigs turned back on.... and the forum jump at the bottom of the page...

Other than those I really dont miss anything.


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## Ishamael

*My thoughts.*

Avatars and sigs are a must, especially in the online games.

Thread ratings can go. 

I understand that the forum jump really hurt the server. How about just a couple of links?

I kinda miss the text option buttons that used to be up there.


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## Fade

Nevermind


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## graydoom

I agree about thread ratings. IMO, they should be disabled. They serve no real use, and if they put more strain on the server....

And I have found that I'm doing fine without sigs and avatars, though I definitely agree with what Green Knight said; avatars do help a lot in recognizing people. But I can live without them.


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## Hand of Vecna

*w00t!*

well, looks like our avatars & .sigs are back -- WOO-HOO!!!


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## reapersaurus

i agree - the sigs, especially, I use to navigate threads.
I'm quite glad they're back.


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## Valavien

Search and email notices gets my vote to be on!  But I have never had a problem with speed, that's probably because when I am online alot of you are in bed asleep


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## DerianCypher

*Search*

Any idea when search will be back? I miss it


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## coyote6

The forum jump list is back at the bottom of pages! Yay!

Hope it doesn't slow things down. I find it very convenient for navigating the various forums.

Off to Story Hour . . .


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## DerianCypher

I miss search  I think search is essential! bring it back!


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## Ranger REG

Did you guys remove the Forum Jump button again? I hate taking the long route (i.e., always going back to the main menu).


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## Piratecat

I did. Remember when we had a week with no problems at all? Things got bad again after I turned the jump-to button back on.  I thought I'd turn it off again and see if it made a difference.

Believe me, I love the jump-to button.  If it doesn't make a difference one way or another, we'll switch it back on.


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## Kid Charlemagne

I'm surfing the site at just after noon, central time, and things are moving very nicely indeed.  If the forum jump is that much of a bandwidth waster, leave it off!  Things are great right now!


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## Piratecat

It might just be the culprit.

As a substitute for forum jump, bookmark this page:

http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=1

Then leave this window open and right-click-open new window for your fave forums. Saves a bit of time!


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## omedon

Bah!

That page has no link to the meta forum.


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## Umbran

Fine.  Then bookmark http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/index.php and use it the same way.


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## Quartermoon

If it was the jump-to menu that held us up last week....can we have avatars back?


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