Yesterday I posted this thread regarding the specs of this bulletin board. It was closed after only 3 replies in less than a day after receiving a few non-answers and a few partially helpful answers. I believe the thread could have gathered some more partially helpful answers if allowed to survive past infancy.
So what’s the reason for the the aggressive thread closing? Did my thread somehow threaten good order or integrity of the board? Even the most recentbanning-related soap opera thrashed about with recriminations and personal attacks for more than a week after a definitive conclusion was reached. And don’t tell me the “moderators can’t be everywhere” because that particular thread was attended by no less than 4 mods/admins.
My thread jeopardized nothing. If it did, I trust the reason would have been documented in the thread. It did not merit such aggressive closing.
I am starting to think this place is a bit over-moderated.
Having read your thread in question, I genuinely believe TubaDiva thought the question was answered. This is not the first time the moderator has stated “asked and answered, so closed”.
Just email them and I am sure they would unlock if you deem your question has not been answered fully.
I don’t understand what the problem is. **Una Persson ** gave you a pretty straightforward answer that should have been very helpful. If you want to know what kind of job vBulletin can do for you, you should go directly to the source, right?
Why is it our responsibility to school you in how to set up and run your own board?
It was pointed out to you that our solutions are probably not your solutions, as the situations greatly vary. You were given directions on how to go about getting what you need.
Everyone who participated in the thread gave you information and advice; if it’s not exactly what you want, that is unfortunate.
What about my answer was a “non-answer” or “partially helpful”? If you’re looking to set up a vBulletin-based board, using the SDMB specs as a sample size of one is sorta interesting academically, but not really helpful if you’re serious about setting up a site. As opposed to visiting the vBulletin forums, where some of the thousands of people using the software for their sites can respond to your thread, give you hints and specs on exactly what software and hardware you’ll need, bandwidth indications, and performance requirements. Their search function can yield lots of hints for performance, and the developers themselves will help people over there directly, provided they aren’t a whiny and needy asshole to them.
Believe me, I like helping people set up sites, and have spent hundreds of hours helping sometimes thankless people with their site plans, hardware, software, security, etc. I wrote a tutorial on how to get Apache/PHP/MySQL all talking together for vBulletin use. But what you’re really needing to know, from how I read your OP, was just something that’s better answered by the broader audience of the vBulletin forums. The Admins and Mods here, IIRC, do not have quick access to much of the specifications you are/were seeking, and therefore your question really wasn’t likely to be answered to your level of detail anyhow unless one of the Reader tech staff (such as jdavis) was around.
First, before I address this “response” point by point, let me say the thing that concerns me most is the rapid, aggressive closing of the thread for no good reason. Other much less worthy threads wind on for days, why pounce on this one? No good reason has been given.
That said, let me address the so-called response, point by point.
My post is on the record, we can all see it contains no such request, so kindly withdraw this strawman.
Opinion. Again, I did not ask for your “solution,” only some specific vital statistics.
I wanted actual stats on a vBulletin board whose response time and performance I have a feel for (to wit, this one). So no, I actually wasn’t given directions on how to go about getting what I needed.
A little advice was collected. There’s no telling how much useful information could have been collected had the thread been allowed to survive more than 5 hours and 34 minutes.
The only people who could give you the information are the admins and tech staff. A representative of those people told you they weren’t willing to give you that information and locked the thread. Do you really imagine that if she’d left it open, another representative would have come along and said, ‘oh, well, you know, contrary to what TubaDiva said, I’m going to tell you. Here’s everything you wanted to know…’?
Again, why is it our responsibility to school you through all you need to set up your board?
While we are a message board, and we are using vB, a popular message board software system, we’re not in the message board propagation business, we don’t sell or service message board hardware or software, this is not what we do. We told you politely where to go to get the information you need.
This is like going to a hardware store and asking for a loaf of bread.
But I get the feeling he isnt actually asking for help setting up the board, he just wants to get the specs of THIS board because he knows how well (poorly?) it responds and he wants to get a similar (or better) response for his own.
As to the analogy, I’d say its more like going into the Hardware Shop and asking how they built their shelving.
Whilst it might be nice to have in your house, its not really going to be the same thing.
This is the second time you’ve mischaracterized me with that same strawman, again I ask you to refrain. One wouldn’t expect this of a moderator.
Again, I didn’t ask any of these things, so why expend the effort to deny them?
And a false analogy on top of the strawman… one more and we’ll have a trifecta, won’t we?
The record clearly shows what I asked in my thread, as well as the nature of my complaint about the thread closure. I’m sorry to see that apparently it can’t be discussed without my words being mischaracterized and distorted. If nothing else, I have gained some useful insight into the thought processes that go into moderation around here.
I don’t think that’s what the OP was asking for. He simply asked what the specs of this site are. He even prefaced it with a question about whether it was even appropriate to ask such questions. If his request wasn’t “kosher” I’d imagine you would’ve said so while closing it. But since that doesn’t seem to be the case, the decision to lock it does seem kinda arbitrary.
I’m wondering if he might have gotten a better response by omitting the last two sentences which explained why he was asking about this.
Incidentally I did actually once ask for assistance here on setting up a message board. I actually had a mod offer me exactly what Tuba is objecting to.
Me too. Personally, I have even less of a reason to want to know, but I’m still bummed that the thread got closed because I’m curious to know just what kind of horsepower something like the SDMB takes.
Thanks Moe, that’s exactly it. Glad to see that a couple of people understand what got under my skin.
This is representative of a pattern I’m beginning to notice SDMB… if you post a straightforward question, you’ll probably get a good response. But whatever you do, never post the reason you asked the question. There’ll be a stampede to debunk the legitimacy of your reasoning, and your original factual question will get lost in the dust.
I guess I’m kinda lost on this question too. Isn’t this question grounds for all threads to be locked?
And correct me if I’m wrong, but can the following questions really be answered by the vBulletin site (with the exception of #5), in which a poster or two recommended?
I think a simple, “No, we cannot give you this information.”, or “We don’t have access to this information.”, would’ve have been justified if it really came down to SDMB privacy, if that’s what they want. Instead of the play on words of why it was really locked.
The truth is probably revolves around the following issues:
Ultimately, this is a business and most businesses do not take kindly to fostering their possible future competition. If I were a Mod I would have spelled this out clearly with something like "hey buddy, if you want your own message board then go make one, but stiop annoying us with your problems.
Everyone know that this site is not competing for the world’s fastest response time award. I weight 275 pounds and am a bit sensitive concerning “fat jokes”. I suspect that asked the equivalent of a “fat joke”.
Wow, this was poorly written even by my standards. I should have known that it might be rough given that I fell asleep twice while writing the thing. I think it’s time for bed.