Elrojo, you have good points.
Creating a forum to list changes in AO (very patch for example) is something I wanted to do instead of posting them in General Messages.
As well, creating forums (or threads) for returning people or based on specific goals is a great idea. The fact some information exists elsewhere on the web doesn't forbid us to have forums or threads for our specific needs, organized as we feel it. (And our info can always, of course, point to other sources, as Lupus mentioned.)
As for having useful information in the first post and not in several posts on pages 3, 5, or 12... this is a common problem with all forums. It requires quite a big work from one (or several) forums editors/"moderators ". AP members who feel they could
have the time and do the job in a very good and "professional" way are welcome to speak up! We need you! !D
About the end of session issue you experienced, it's not an easy thing to solve. I'll explain why.
When you type text in the post message box, for the servers, you do nothing: it's only on your computer.
You do something for the servers, only if you use a function, like Preview, etc.
In themselves, our forums don't limit your posting session time, even if you do nothing.
But the maximum session time is set by a PHP language setting called "session.gc_maxlifetime" on which our forums engine depends.
session.gc_maxlifetime is set to 1440 seconds, so 24 minutes. This means that every 24 minutes, if you have done nothing f
or the server, your sessions ends, and the forums will consider you logged off.
Now, why in hell just not changing the session.gc_maxlifetime value?! Here is the issue. Contrary to our dedicated bots server, on which we can do all we want, our web hosting (which includes other things like Alliance forums or Clans United, etc.) relies on a cluster of servers shared with other persons. Not one server but a cluster, where workload is balanced, files possibly duplicated, etc. This is transparent for the end user, but it's quite a complicated thing on which we have no direct control.
On such a system, customizing session.gc_maxlifetime for us is... a bit of a pain in the..... uh.... neck. I already looked into this, asked questions, and found no over-time-reliable-solution.
I agree it's an issue each time someone spends a lot of time on one post, only typing without doing anything else. (24 minutes is quite long!)
I'm wondering about moving all or a part of our web hosting to our dedicated server (for more reasons than just the session time.) It's something that needs to be thoughtfully investigated though.
For the moment, you have some workarounds:
- If you see you have been disconnected whne you type "Subimit", use the "Go back" key of your browser. You should -in many cases- be able to find your text (especially if you use the "Preview" button at some time, then copy it, log on again and paste it.
- Type long texts and things that take time to be written in a wordprocessor, and then copy/paste them whne done.
- Use a bit the "Preview" button to let the server know you are still there. (Or other functions.)