# 10,000 post limit

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101>\
**Category:** Site Feedback\
**Created:** [October 31, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101 "2022-10-31T22:55:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/1 "2022-10-31T22:55:02Z")

</div>

I thought there was a 10,000 post limit per thread, but this [Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1) - #10091 by Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/10091)? is the 10091st post in the “Ukraine Invaded” thread. What’s the Straight Dope on thread limits?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/2 "2022-10-31T23:10:25Z")

</div>

Are there actually 10000 posts in the thread? If a post is removed, do the other posts retain their number or do they get changed to reflect? I would guess in order to keep links going to the right post that the number is retained, and there are less than 10000 posts in that thread.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/3 "2022-10-31T23:12:21Z")

</div>

Ah. That makes sense. 90-some deleted posts is still less than 1% of the posts in that thread. I was thinking that limiting mechanism reacted to post number, but apparently not.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/4 "2022-10-31T23:50:52Z")

</div>

> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> 90-some deleted posts

I think they were moved to new offshoot threads for straying off-topic, rather than being deleted.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2022, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/5 "2022-10-31T23:56:04Z")

</div>

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2022, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/6 "2022-11-01T00:04:50Z")

</div>

Since this is about Discourse software, let’s move this to Site Feedback (from ATMB).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2022, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/7 "2022-11-01T00:13:10Z")

</div>

As I understand it, Discourse is designed to handle much larger threads. However, an artificial limit of 10,000 posts was put in to place for two main reasons. First, large threads are unwieldy and difficult to navigate (might be much easier to navigate if Discourse allowed a page option instead of infinite scrolling, but @codinghorror has already stated several times that this is a hill that he is willing to die on, so that’s not happening, even if it were just an option). Second, they found that devices with limited memory and such (like mobile phones) had issues with longer threads and how much information Discourse had to download to the phone.

The default for Discourse is to automatically close threads once they reach 10,000 posts. I believe that the auto-close feature and the exact point where it triggers are both configurable in the admin control panel. I don’t know if we have changed them from the default values or not.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2022, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-000-post-limit/974101/8 "2022-11-01T00:16:50Z")

</div>

Thank you
