Numbering Posts

Dan,

   Now there is a great idea for quick search referencing, great suggestion for the OGR management.

PCRR/Dave

Kudos Dan - I agree!

I think it's a good idea as well.

We do have 'Permalinks' available to use now to refer to a specific post in a thread. They are available by selecting 'Take Action' from the lower right corner of a post. Then select Permalink, copy the address from the address bar of your browser and past into your message.

So how do we get the moderators to initiate a numbering system ?

That's probably something that needs to be done by Hoopla.

Dan Padova posted:

So how do we get the moderators to initiate a numbering system ?

NJCJOE posted:

That's probably something that needs to be done by Hoopla.

Exactly. Thanks, Joe.

We have no way to make this happen other than to submit it as a “suggestion “ to Hoopla. They write and host the code that runs this forum.

Gentlemen,

Just wondering if there is any way to number posts with the recent updates to the forum?

Thanks,

Jim

Hoopla did not incorporate this suggestion into their recent upgrades. Sorry.

Just as well, previously when there was post numbering there seemed to be a quantity of Hamburger Helper posts. 

I'm confused: Does 6290 shown at the bottom of the page mean this was the very last (first?) numbered theme on the forum or...?   I notice that the dates begin in 2011.  Since no new comments are permitted have any plans been discussed at OGR board meetings to erase these older out of date themes? 

Thank you.

@Trinity River Bottoms Boomer posted:

I'm confused: Does 6290 shown at the bottom of the page mean this was the very last (first?) numbered theme on the forum or...? 

That is just the oldest archived page accessible on the forum.

Thanks ACDX Rob for replying to my question.  Appears to still include a lot of "Hamburger Helper" posts that member Tom Tee mentioned.  Seems like many could be deleted since they're out of date and probably aren't ever called up anymore? 

@Trinity River Bottoms Boomer posted:

I'm confused: Does 6290 shown at the bottom of the page mean this was the very last (first?) numbered theme on the forum or...?   I notice that the dates begin in 2011.  Since no new comments are permitted have any plans been discussed at OGR board meetings to erase these older out of date themes? 

Thank you.

I believe that around 2011 they changed to a new format and a lot of the older posts were lost.  I know there was a lot of gnashing of teeth around that time.

The author can number his posts to a topic a I have done to one of my continuing  type of post.  I can only number my posts I have written to the topic not the posts of other contributors which is good.  I recently added a table of contents listing listing the post number, title of post and page of topic the number post is on.  Numbering the posts allowed this.

Posts can be identified by date and time of post but that may not do in place of a post number.

Charlie

gunrunnerjohn: Thanks for the updated information.  What about the older posts that have outlived their usefullness? 

That's not for me to decide, you'll have to talk to board management.

Truthfully, I don't see the point in going back to old posts and doing anything with them.  First off, there's good information in many old posts.  If you're thinking of just "culling the chaff" from the posts, think of what a gargantuan effort this would be!  I really doubt that OGR management are interested in that much extra work, I think they're pretty busy now.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

@Trinity River Bottoms Boomer posted:

...What about the older posts that have outlived their usefullness? 

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

...I don't see the point in going back to old posts and doing anything with them.  First off, there's good information in many old posts....

GunrunnerJohn has it right. You never know when an old post may hold the answer to a new question.

The "gnashing of teeth" that gunrunnerjohn mentions above had to do with automatic pruning of posts. Years ago we had the forum software set to automatically delete threads that had not had a reply within a certain amount of time. However, we ended up losing a very long and valuable thread about the Natty Boh reefer in that process. Several people had contributed mightily to that project, and they were very angry and disappointed that the thread was lost. And I don't blame them.  I was able to get most of it back in PDF format for the original author by getting Hoopla/Crowdstack Tech Support involved, but the thread itself was lost forever.

Not that many years ago there was a practical limit on the amount of disc space we could use, and it was expensive. But things have changed as the march of technological progress continues. Disc space is cheaper these days. All the servers are now running 64-bit operating systems, and with multi-TERABYTE hard drives now common, there's no practical limit to the amount of disc storage this forum can use. Saving a few gigs of disc space is just not worth the potential problems deleting old posts could cause.

@Trinity River Bottoms Boomer posted:

Thanks ACDX Rob for replying to my question.  Appears to still include a lot of "Hamburger Helper" posts that member Tom Tee mentioned.  Seems like many could be deleted since they're out of date and probably aren't ever called up anymore? 

You never know what gem of knowledge is hidden in one of these older posts. Great reference material plus Protosound, K-Line and TMCC operating help. 

If you could get Google to not pull up deadend pages in a search that we'd all be for!

A busy flying forum I belong to has numbered posts. In the 10-12-years I've been on it, I've never used it to find anything. I suspect very few people ever do. The extremely low demand is probably why we don't have it here.

Is it just me or,,,,,,,,,,,,,,since the original post is from about 2 1/2 YEARS ago, why does it matter???????

O gauge model railroading is a very small subject in the whole world of information.

Using the popular evil search engine will almost always show many listings on almost any O gauge subjects from our OGR forum.  OGR forum is the prime source for O gauge model railroading according to major search engines.  The heavy internet traffic of the OGR forum by us members keeps OGR forum high up on the search engine pecking order.  Just try a search for "O gauge turntable" and check the result.

I would expect the search engines help OGR forum expose the hobby to the general public better than any other platform including magazines, train shows, train clubs. and word of mouth.

I am appreciative of OGR, management and Rich for supporting the saving of posts, articles and information from this site to be shared world wide and hopefully expose our enjoyment of the hobby to all.

Charlie

Good points from all parties.  This is what makes the OGR Family so unique.  At OGR, Democracy still works for the benefit of all people interested in the hobby, regardless of age, choice of gauge or scale, digital subscriber, supporting member, or first time visitor.  It can be best summed up in one word: WOW!

I'm joining with Choo Choo Charlie now.  A special thank you to Alan plus the entire OGR management and Rich.  You guys have and continue to do a job above and beyond the call of duty to insure that The World's Greatest Hobby and O gauge in particular survive in these troubled and turbulant times in which we find ourselves today.

Joseph Toth Jr.