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Joined: Jun 2001
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I know this may sound strange, but i'd like to discourage use from a forum!
I run a car website, and just lately the off-topic forum is being used more and more, the site is turning into a general chitchat dating site! I dont want to switch it off completley and annoy the users, i just want to gently push them into using the site for what I intended it for, to be used for car chat/advice.
Is there anyway to hide a certain forum from the activetopics list?
If anyone has any general advice i'd be welcome to hear it.
TIA

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I know what you mean, my site is vehicle oriented... but now, the off-topic area is way more busy than all of the other forums combined. It was bothersome at first, but the more I thought about it I realized that the people came to the site for one reason.. for the information. Then while there, they make friends who share similar interests, and then spend time chatting.

I think the biggest thing to be concerned about is to make sure that ALL off-topic chat is contained in the forum setup for it. Be very strict with that so that all of the technical forums and such are just that. I found that without a place for people to chit-chat and just talk leisurely, then the off-topic dribble gets brought into other forums, and causes more problems.

I supposed you could add a small hack or something that limited the number of posts in a certain forum per day or something, but I think like you said, you will start to upset people and may cause more problems.

Sorry I can't be of much more help, just some of my own observations from running a specific vehicle forum for 3 years

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Another option is to make it group based and only allow certain users into the group, all others wouldn't be able to see or post in it. I have a couple of them setup that way on my site.

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Yeah, make it so only paying members can post there.

Or tweak it so that the off topic forum doesn't count for post count. But maybe that's not their motivation.

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[]JoshPet said:

Or tweak it so that the off topic forum doesn't count for post count. But maybe that's not their motivation. [/]

i was going to ask that but didnt think it was possible!
so it is possible?

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Yeah I've done it here so navaho can't bump his post count in the test forum. LOL

Let me see if i posted instructions and/or write something up.

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Hi,

"Or tweak it so that the off topic forum doesn't count for post count."
Ooohh, I like it
We have a forum called the Board Bar in which pretty much anything goes (with exception of flaming and such) and we have had many, many posts in there of people posting only to increase their postcount.

Would be a hoot to add this

Sanuk!

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OK - here's what I've done here......

Code
<br />In addpost.php Find this:<br /><br />   // ------------------------<br />   // Up their totalposts by 1 <br />      $Totalposts = $user['U_Totalposts'] + 1;<br />      $CurrTitle  = $user['U_Title'];<br />      $Color         = $user['U_Color'];<br /><br /><br />Change to this:<br /><br />   // ------------------------<br />   // Up their totalposts by 1 <br />   		// If it's the test forum then it's navaho uping his post count<br />   		// don't increase the post count<br />		if ($Board == 'test') {<br />		      $Totalposts = $user['U_Totalposts'];<br />		      $CurrTitle  = $user['U_Title'];<br />		      $Color         = $user['U_Color'];<br />		}    <br />		  else {<br />		      $Totalposts = $user['U_Totalposts'] + 1;<br />		      $CurrTitle  = $user['U_Title'];<br />		      $Color         = $user['U_Color'];<br />		}    <br /><br />



Replace "test" above with the board keyword to exclude.

If you have more than one board to exclude.... do the line like this:

Code
<br />		if (($Board == 'test') || ($Board == 'whatever')) {<br />


or

Code
<br />		if (($Board == 'test') || ($Board == 'whatever') || ($Board == 'thridboard')) {<br />


Hope that helps.

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Cheers m8!

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Hi,

Thanks.
Now I am debating whether or not to implement this and risk getting lynched

Sanuk!

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[]ksanuk said:
Hi,

Thanks.
Now I am debating whether or not to implement this and risk getting lynched

Sanuk!
[/]
Maybe they won't even notice. I mean, don't even tell them. Let them figure it out on their own, if someone asks, then explain it to them

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it took people here about a day to notice.

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... Navaho is still not aware Sshh don't tell him though....


Fans Focus - Focusing on Fans of Sport

(Okay - mainly football (the British variety wink at the moment - but expanding all the time....)
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LOL

I think he noticed right way. LOL He no longer posts there. :lol:

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Since the addition of Josh's Google-friendly mod on my forums, I don't care what my mostly-teenage members are posting about, as long as they're posting. I'm very strict about ensuring that "chit chat" stays in the "off-topic" forums, but I don't mind if they want to talk about homework or complain about their parents or review the new album by P!NK. I link to one of my other sites in my footer file, so every new page which my members generate is another page for Google to crawl, and another backlink for my other site. It also ends up driving new members to the board, because my forums now show up in search results for hundreds of different topics, not just the main topic of my board. I used to be very strict about what could and could not be discussed, but then I realized that the kids saw the board members as "family", and so I changed my thinking to make the best of the situation.

To keep other forums on-topic, I try to facilitate discussion by giving the members "topic starters".

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for Google.

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Josh, implemented the code on our site (threads 6.4b1) and can't get it to work?

// Up their totalposts by 1
// Hack implemented Tue 9th Dec by Mirez
// don't increase the post count in certain forums
if ($Board == 'UBB5') {
$Totalposts = $user['U_Totalposts'];
$CurrTitle = $user['U_Title'];
$Color = $user['U_Color'];
}
else {
$Totalposts = $user['U_Totalposts'] + 1;
$CurrTitle = $user['U_Title'];
$Color = $user['U_Color'];
}


As above, the forums key if deffo UBB5 but it still increments 1 each time??

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It should work...the only thing I could imagine is write
if ($Board == "UBB5") {
instead of
if ($Board == 'UBB5') {

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Still havent got this hack to work Josh. Mirez is an administrator on my site, he had a go as you can see above, but nothing seems to happen.

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Are you sure that UUB5 is the keyword for that board. I'm pretty sure that it is case sensative, so even it is ubb5 instead UBB5, that would be enough of a difference.

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UBB5 would be the keyword. That is the base for anyone converting from UBB

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Actually - in a recent version the code got changed..... I'm going to report it as a threads bug, as it makes the existing code redundant. But you'll also need to find this:
Code
<br />        UPDATE {$config['tbprefix']}Users<br />        SET    U_Totalposts = U_Totalposts + 1,<br />               U_Laston     = '$date',<br />               U_Title      = '$UserTitle_q'<br />        WHERE  U_Number   = '{$user['U_Number']}'<br />


Change to this:
Code
<br />        UPDATE {$config['tbprefix']}Users<br />        SET    U_Totalposts = $Totalposts,<br />               U_Laston     = '$date',<br />               U_Title      = '$UserTitle_q'<br />        WHERE  U_Number   = '{$user['U_Number']}'<br />

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I get this error when installing the hack. The hack seems to work, but i get the error. Also, it doesnt allow post count in any forum, so i need to tweak the code to only let it miss out certain ones yeah?

[]

SQL ERROR: Tue, Jan 27 2004 07:36:48 -0500 Unable to do_query: UPDATE w3t_Users SET U_Totalposts = Totalposts, U_Laston = '1075225008', U_Title = 'Webmaster' WHERE U_Number = '2'
Unknown column 'Totalposts' in 'field list'

[/]

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=$Totalposts
has to be
='$Totalposts'

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just like to say, finally got this working. nice little hack, thanks everyone.


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