Pruning and member post count (Rank Drop)

[Highway of Life]

I'm just not sure why pruning would need to adjust the post count...

My biggest fear here is that this was noticed so late, the developers don't have much enthusiasm to fix/adjust it if it requires more than a few changes.
i.e. I don't think they would like the idea of adding an extra field to the user table,
or revamping how the prune function works (not decreasing user posts).
Pruning the post/subject of posts wouldn't be a bad idea, IMO... I think if only the post row was there, and all the other fields were emptied, this would work, but then you have a problem with the pruning needing to go through and SET post_subject and post_text to '' instead of just DELETE which is the current method.

Gotta love post review...
Yes, but the point is that IMO the pruned action shouldn't decrease post count in the first place.
But as for resync, I agree that is a good idea.

[Nicholas the Italian]

Yes, but the point is that IMO the pruned action shouldn't decrease post count in the first place.
But as for resync, I agree that is a good idea.

What's exactly the purpose of resyncing? I mean, if the post count is kept consistent all the way, that should not be necessary. When does it become necessary?

(I guess hacking the postcount field so that 16 bits keep total postcount and 16 bits keep pruned posts is not a great idea eh? mmm...)
(Edit: assuming it's a 32bit field of course.)

[tffnguy]

it would probably be a good idea to create a field in the users table that would be a running count of posts by that user that have been pruned... then the resync users posts would take that into consideration.

I'll make it as a mod if I have to, but I'm hoping I won't have to.

Edited because I had a better idea

No doubt another field would have to be added, but only the one should be all. With that one field never dropping and going up with each post then the actual post count wouldn't matter at all as far as the user was concerned. That is unless I'm missing something. Anything else that would effect the user could still be taken from the true post count though.

[Handyman]

it would probably be a good idea to create a field in the users table that would be a running count of posts by that user that have been pruned... then the resync users posts would take that into consideration.

I'll make it as a mod if I have to, but I'm hoping I won't have to.

Edited because I had a better idea

No doubt another field would have to be added, but only the one should be all. With that one field never dropping and going up with each post then the actual post count wouldn't matter at all as far as the user was concerned. That is unless I'm missing something. Anything else that would effect the user could still be taken from the true post count though.

well... if you were going to go that route, then you wouldn't need the extra field... just remove the post resync feature.
I'm saying if you still want the post resync, the extra field would be a running total of posts by this user that were pruned.
That way, when the resync runs, it finds all posts by that user, then adds the total in that field for the users total posts.

[tffnguy]

well... if you were going to go that route, then you wouldn't need the extra field... just remove the post resync feature.
I'm saying if you still want the post resync, the extra field would be a running total of posts by this user that were pruned.
That way, when the resync runs, it finds all posts by that user, then adds the total in that field for the users total posts.

Evidently there's a reason for the resunc function although I don't see it. I don't see a way to pull the other idea off without adding a field though. It would be needed to keep the number for the 'displayed user post count" and for the rank to be taken from. I'd think it would be a pretty easy fix?

I was thinking about something else on this topic also, but haven't tried it. It would be setting up one forum where post count is not kept and Auto Pruning is enabled for that forum only. When you want to prune old topics in other forums that don't have auto pruning enabled, but post count is kept then you move those topics to the one forum where post count isn't kept and auto pruning is enabled. Permissions would have to be set so that users couldn't post in that forum and maybe not even be able to see it.

Anyone have a clue what would happen when that forum was pruned? Would it drop the member post count anyway? Or would it drop the user's post count when it was moved from a forum where post count was kept and moved to a forum where it wasn't kept?

[cutaia]

In terms of how to fix it: I wouldn't worry about that. After all, Beta 5 isn't to be used in a live environment anyway, so you shouldn't have any problems, right? Who cares if people's ranks drop on your beta testing board?

Wait, you didn't upgrade on your live board...did you? 8O

[tffnguy]

In terms of how to fix it: I wouldn't worry about that. After all, Beta 5 isn't to be used in a live environment anyway, so you shouldn't have any problems, right? Who cares if people's ranks drop on your beta testing board?

Wait, you didn't upgrade on your live board...did you? 8O

Too bad people don't go back and read messages before coming to conclusions.

This is a small closed family BBS and I decided to use it to experiment on before converting my main site forums. I only have a few of the 26 members PO'ed at me and I changed the database to get their post count back up so I'm ok on that now. (Provided it doesn't cause problems with resyncing or what ever later on) At least now I know when I convert my main site not to setup auto pruning because I'd be editing a few thousand accounts instead of 26.

And in answer to:

Who cares if people's ranks drop on your beta testing board?

I do! Why? see the below quote!

It is not possible at all to take the pruned posts into consideration for the resync post counts feature in 3.0.x. Also, it may not be able to be fixed at all - rather suggesting to disable post counting in those forums.

If I'm not mistaken it looks like the problem isn't going to get fixed period and if it hadn't been for me testing it on the small board then I wouldn't have been the one to point the problem out in the first place. If someone else hadn't stumbled across the problem then once the RC was released then more than likely a bunch of LARGE boards could have had a LOT of users Po'ed.

For the small family board I tested it on I really didn't care whether it PO'ed off a few crabby family members, but on my main forums I do. Why? Because it has a LOT of very good information which can be used by a LOT of people that need it. Its a public service and having a rank system rewards people who supply the information. In all of the forums where most of the technical information is stored I have them set to never prune, but then there are other forums with chit chat and other stuff that doesn't need to be saved so I have them set to auto prune. I just hate for good members to loose post counts (And rank) because of that.

I do have a second board setup using phpBB3 B5 and tried to get my moderators from the main site to test it with me to get used to it and see if we could find bugs. Out of about 26 moderators only 4 took me up on it and they are hit and miss about doing anything on it. In this case the SMALL FAMILY board came in real handy considering I could convert the old forums to the new and test the conversion then find out what other bugs could be found.

Sorry for being so long winded here, but it really ticks me off when people make statements like yours and have no clue what you are talking about.

[Highway of Life]

In terms of how to fix it: I wouldn't worry about that. After all, Beta 5 isn't to be used in a live environment anyway, so you shouldn't have any problems, right? Who cares if people's ranks drop on your beta testing board?

Uh... did you forget to read the topic? If it's not fixed now, it won't be fixed at all... how else are we going to find a bug like this?
Why should we stop worrying about bugs now? is it better to worry about bugs when the software is released, or in Beta stage?
I think this post was a bit short sighted, wouldn't you agree?

tffn, I have never used the post resync function, but I was just taking that into consideration when dealing with the pruning bug because the sync function would count all posts... and pruned posts are... well... pruned, so they would throw all user post counts off quite a bit if it was used on a board that uses pruning.

[Handyman]

In terms of how to fix it: I wouldn't worry about that. After all, Beta 5 isn't to be used in a live environment anyway, so you shouldn't have any problems, right? Who cares if people's ranks drop on your beta testing board?

why wouldn't somebody care?
If it's not fixed by the time I get time, I'll create some code to get it done.

[tffnguy]

tffn, I have never used the post resync function, but I was just taking that into consideration when dealing with the pruning bug because the sync function would count all posts... and pruned posts are... well... pruned, so they would throw all user post counts off quite a bit if it was used on a board that uses pruning.

I've never used the resync function either. Then again I wouldn't have known when and if I was supposed to. Curiosity wasn't enough to make me do it. I guess I won't try creating a folder to move messages to just to see what happens.

If it's not fixed by the time I get time, I'll create some code to get it done.

I'd have sure bet that would have been taken care of in version 3. Would be nice to get it that way. (MOD or no MOD!)