• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

If at all possible.

Dennis Hultman

Dennis Hultman

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Now that it’s more active, can we pleaseeeeeee have the new posts link rolled back to show all new posts, not just the last hundred. It would really hurt to think I missed a post that I would want to contribute to because it was extremely active on a particular day.

I truly miss seeing all posts in the search function when trying to find old threads too. Anyway, maybe you can make it a perk with contribution levels.
 
Well I understand what you are saying, but I don't believe you understand why I had to limit it like I did.

Suppose I did enable it so that ALL posts would be displayed for the Display New Posts function. And suppose someone stops by here after a 6 months absence and does the Display New Posts function. How many posts would that search have to bring up and display? Suppose 100 people under the same circumstances happened to initiate that function at the same time? Aren't the rest of the members going to get a bit peeved when the system slows down considerably with the server getting bogged down with all those searches? The option for the number of posts retrieved in a search is shared with the function for displaying all new posts as well as the regular search function button. So it is entirely possible that at any given time, this site may have dozens of searches being done at the same moment. Having each of those functions pulling 100 hits from the database is bad enough, but each one calling up ALL hits, meaning each search has to search through each and every record in the index file for the database, would place an unacceptable burden on the throughput of this site.

Bear in mind that although each post here on this site is indexed for keyword searches (which is also used for the Display New Posts function), the index file alone is 137 megabytes. Which means the potential exists for each and every search to have to process this entire 137 megabyte file each and every time a search is initiated. Now, tell me that won't put a load on the server if I didn't limit the number of hits returned............

Sorry, but as in many instances in trying to decide what is best for the overall use of this site, compromises will always have to be made.
 
Sorry, but no. That is not an option that is controlled via the member group permissions. It is a global option that affects all users equally.
 
I just checked the posting stats page and see that over the last three days (04/10 - 04/12) we got 522, 539, and 546 new posts. Since the numbers seem to be increasing, I felt a compromise is in order and increased the search hit count to 200 returns rather then just the previous 100 hits.

Maybe that will help somewhat.

But I will be keeping an eye on server load, and if it looks like it is causing too much loading down of the server, I will have to revert back to the lower number to keep things running smoothly.

How's that sound?
 
WebSlave said:
How's that sound?
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me. :hurray:

I was wondering though, just an idea--don't even know if it's possible, but since we're back to thread-based classified ads, would it be possible/feasible/logical/realistic/appropriate to leave the classifieds out of the "new posts" feature? I mean, no offense to the ads whatsoever, but I go browse them if I'm looking for something, whereas I might drop in on a new discussion topic if I come across it.

:shrug01:
 
Holy cow, I never realized how many new posts I had been missing until now.....LOL.

Thanks, Rich. :)
 
Ditto!

Dennis Hultman said:
I hope the server is handling it ok.
I just want to reiterate how much I appreciate the compromise. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Seems the 200 is a good number. I'm here quite often and there has been only a few instances where I have had over 150 new posts in the time since my previous checking in.

Thanks again Rich.
 
Well, the server load is up a bit because of it, so we'll just have to see how things go. If the loading gets too heavy, and/or people complain about sluggishness, I would prefer to cut down the search hit number rather then having to pay for a faster server (not that this one is any slouch!) any sooner then absolutely necessary.
 
doesnt seem any slower to me, in fact is is running quite well, as quick as i click on something the next page loads in the blink of an eye.Not sure if thats what your talking about of if me having a new/fast computer with a cable modem makes a difference.
 
Well I have dial up but I did click the new post link, it game me 40 new post in less than 10 seconds. Maybe there were only 40 since I hit it last.
 
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