it's the chat and the search that weigh things down. you know how the search used to crash? thats becasue we had to upgrade our server.
we use a sophisticated java program called elasticsearch. because this program runs on java, we have to run a virtual java server called tomcat. the reason for this is that it's really fast, and it has a lot of great capability.
the draw back is that it demands a lot of resources. but you must consider.. when you ask a program to search this website's entire history of data for a keyword, it's doing a lot work. it's reviewing a lot of data, so it doesn't suprise me.
Our server: 2048 ram.
1818 used.
Free RAM atm: 229
by EtzelThis is true, but there's more to it than just moderation. If tomorrow Luna decided to make this forum heavily moderated, added lots of posting guidelines, etc. the content would still be terrible, because there's no goal for this website.
It goes like this, generally speaking: FIRST you place a goal to the forum (to the content you'd like to see posted in the forum), THEN you moderate the fuck out of it. No one in the internet seems to be aware of this, and the result is that there are barely 5 or 6 properly moderated, worthwhile forums to visit depending of course on your interests and tastes. Everywhere else everyone and their mother are allowed to have an opinion (and VOICE it moreover) no matter how idiotic and retarded it is, and when a high quality post suddenly appears, it is immediately buried by countless boring, contentless and usually even meaningless posts. The purpose of moderation, then (and no one seems to be able to grasp this), is to RAISE the level of a discussion. This of course requires a COMPETENT moderator, and he will only step into a discussion if he is a specialist in it and can add worthwhile comments. When this is not the case, he will NOT POST ANYTHING in the thread and will leave the specialists deal with the issues themselves, all the while making sure any 12 year old kids attempting to shit on the discussion are promptly banned (permanently).
This is the only way to ensure the content of your forum remains as good as possible: by having only the specialists give their opinions. Everyone else can go fuck themselves: the internet is filled with chatrooms and everyone can happily wank themselves there eternally. It's not like all the chatrooms would magically disappear after a SINGLE website decided to have standards and self-respect anyway, so stupid 12 year olds need not to worry. Intelligent 12 year olds, on the other hand, would be perfectly served, because they could then EASILY READ what the AWESOME EXPERTS are saying about their favorite subjects. So everyone wins: stupid people can keep being stupid, not-so-stupid people can learn from intelligent people on their fav. subjects and intelligent people will not only learn with other specialists, but also and more importantly, CONTRIBUTE with CUTTING-EDGE ANALYSIS and KNOWLEDGE of whatever the hell is being discussed in their forums. This is what "high-quality content" means: that only THE BEST are allowed have an opinion.
Can you now see, dear reader, why 99% of the existing forums are terribly moderated? Because the moderators don't do their job! They don't even moderate! The most they do is ban offensive words and users! So-called "moderators" are no more than policeman whose job is to make sure discussions run without conflict! But the very act of discussing presupposes conflict: if everyone thought the same there would be no reason to discuss anything (ultimately no need to communicate anything). That is not to say that a competent moderator shouldn't strive to make the discussions as polite and civil as possible, but THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ONLY AN AFTERTHOUGHT -- the important thing is NOT TO HAVE COMPLETE IMBECILES POSTING MINDBOGGLING HORSESHIT ON GOOD THREADS. Also, to DELETE stupid threads. And to also ban whoever was too stupid to read the posting guidelines. And. And. Etc.
That's the job of the moderator: to raise OR maintain the level of the discussion.
So, to get back at our little sociopathic forum, what is the goal of this website? Is it to have CUTTING-EDGE discussion on sociopathy and perhaps other mental illnesses and psychology as whole, or is it just to have a bunch of bored people socialize, gossip and joke around?
And need I answer that question? Isn't it obvious what the purpose of this website so far as been? Why would moderation be needed when there is no goal? And if making an elaborate chatroom (which functions like a forum and looks like it) IS the goal of this website, then the goal is ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED and moderation is not needed (unless you want to make a chatroom for experts only, in which case you'd have to find a way to test their expertise before they were allowed to join and/or be already aware of their awesomeness, etc.).
So that's it for sociopath-community. Moderating it without placing a goal of high quality content would only make it worse, because at least this way we can see the true colors of bored pranksters and gossipers. Whoever feels disgusted with the content in here should just turn their backs and move away. Staying here WHILE complaining is just hypocrisy (if not outright stupidity, lol), since there are TONS of other places where you can get high quality commentary on whatever subjects you like (namely in books, and even on the internet if you know how to look for it).
A last question remains, though: what, then, is the FUTURE of this website? But isn't it obvious? Luna herself seems to have been working her way towards this future. To grow "infinitely"; to bring more and more bored pranksters and gossipers; to maximize the "niche" "sociopathy" and package it in a nice, tidy and appealing way to the masses; to make a lot of — money.
That is the only worthwhile goal of this website: to make money. To maximize the number of sheep under the concept "sociopath" (which I hear is fashion these days!) and use them to make money with the power of the internet. After a certain point, however, the bigger it grows, the worse and worse it will get content-wise, because the masses are not just averse to quality: they are averse to honesty and rudeness, and these are currently the only "selling points" (lol) of this website for me. What I mean, basically, is that as this website grows it will look more and more like psychforums.
But if the goal is neither quality nor money, why the hell are you wasting your time here Luna? To practise you web design skills of course! And that's totally fine. :)
Wow. This is the public internet, pal. If you want reliable, serious, high quality info and conversations, you have books/scientific literature and can make geeky circles of friends in real life. Why the hell would people spend massive energy and time to research everything they type on a forum. That you want to do that, and write fucking essays every time you go online, doesn't mean others have the time or the patience to do the same, especially since it's a fucking waste of time that gives you nothing back anyway. Want something meaningful, write a book/articles and get published ffs.
People coming online are very diverse, they come from various schools of life, and a lot of them, me included, surf the net in their spare time, to have fun and relax. Coming to a sociopathy forum to quench your need to talk about stuff like Nietzche, and get angry when people aren't impressed and jumping in to contribute, is kinda delusional.
(Btw, when I read your posts, I always imagine you as that short angry kid from Ender's game, for some reason...)
Can't we get an advanced search like on the old forum? That one never caused any trouble, and it was more useful than this one.
In response to your first paragraph, I will just quote what I said:
[...] the internet is filled with chatrooms and everyone can happily wank themselves there eternally. It's not like all the chatrooms would magically disappear after a SINGLE website decided to have standards and self-respect anyway, so stupid 12 year olds need not to worry.
By "chatrooms" I really mean every forum ever, lol. I'm not trying to change the internet as a WHOLE, since that would be impossible due to the inherently democratic characteristics of the internet. Even with a worldwide dictatorship I doubt moderating the entire internet would be easy. But that's beside the point: I am merely accommodating myself WITHIN the internet and trying to change some parts of it according to my tastes. So why does it bother you that two or three websites function like this when you have the other 47675335 billion working just as you enjoy?
Coming to a sociopathy forum to quench your need to talk about stuff like Nietzche, and get angry when people aren't impressed and jumping in to contribute, is kinda delusional.
So you hallucinate that I get angry and I'm the delusional?
Also, no idea who that kid is and, to be honest, I don't really care.