idlepurge, bite my shiny metal donkey! ;P
Feb. 17th, 2006 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceagleOnce Upon A Time...
When Hard Drives were 5 megabytes, maybe even 20, yes, megabytes, ....it might have meant something to do muck idlepurges.
Nowadays, what does it accomplish:
1) saves all of maybe 20 k or so for the database character toading ...
2) even more if there was a lot of stuff that they built, at the expense of cohesion in the muck layout
3) the disappointment of a person who returns to find all the hours they spent investing time and energy there, trashed.
So what does it accomplish any more...? It is no more than an archaic technicality, a mere protocol of a bygone day when it mattered. And the result of this unpondered remnant (not unlike a bureaucratic stamp at the department of motor vehicles) ... is a lose-lose situation all around.
I humbly submit... that idle purges may now officially become a thing of the past.
When Hard Drives were 5 megabytes, maybe even 20, yes, megabytes, ....it might have meant something to do muck idlepurges.
Nowadays, what does it accomplish:
1) saves all of maybe 20 k or so for the database character toading ...
2) even more if there was a lot of stuff that they built, at the expense of cohesion in the muck layout
3) the disappointment of a person who returns to find all the hours they spent investing time and energy there, trashed.
So what does it accomplish any more...? It is no more than an archaic technicality, a mere protocol of a bygone day when it mattered. And the result of this unpondered remnant (not unlike a bureaucratic stamp at the department of motor vehicles) ... is a lose-lose situation all around.
I humbly submit... that idle purges may now officially become a thing of the past.
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hiya coati!
Date: 2006-02-18 06:43 am (UTC)...O' course I'm super sorry to hear that the management there (you among them) has to deal with that negativity, and if ya'll has chosen to respond to it thatta way, at's yer choice ah guess. I personally don't see how it's effective, because if as you say they are just getting new characters, nothing really has been accomplished, and so methinx there must be some other way to combat that issue without affecting others. *hugs, sorry to hear of the icky woeful stuff*...
I'll totally agree that it does remind people to login, being that you post the info around and also send emails out. :> You do mention that it's big work and a big task though, and noting that (for both admins AND characters), it just seems that the cycle time could be extended (see below) or eliminated, but at least extended, to reduce the annoyance factor for admins and participants too.
*chirp!*
Re: hiya coati!
Date: 2006-02-19 04:58 pm (UTC)Well, the policy of idle-purges only did wonders to eliminate the ability of people to play drama queen with their exits. You can give the storming-off speech, but if if you can't avoid the temptation to log in again for the next few months, it doesn't do you any ultimate good. You just come out looking silly. Happily, this very well deflated the worst offenders; if they have the discipline to stay away for four months the moment they depart altogether isn't noticed.
Mostly the hard part of the task is that I don't like going through the characters who haven't logged in, for whom we can't find reasons to keep around. This tends to narrow it down to the people with the least sentimental attraction to the place -- folks who'd logged in once or twice and then never again, very often -- but for the good it does in bringing attention to the place to others who might have forgotten, it is something of a benefit.