>>I still have not figured out how this works just yet. Anyone figure it out yet?





The numbers for both lists tend to be updated once every hour.



Top 10 Forums by Posts: This ranking is based on overall cumulative posts going all the way back to when the new forum system went into effect.. Feb. 2003.



That is a hard number to beat in the long run. The early runners of the most active forums during that first year gave certain forums a head start that is hard to beat. Late bloomer or brand new forums could not compete fairly against those numbers. So, to help offset that handicap and make the playing level more fair, a 2nd list was created....



Top 10 Popular Forums.



This list is based on the daily activity of the forums right now (or close to it). This list can change suddenly as during certain seasons some forum topics are very active and then die down activity wise at other times...breeding/hatching season seems to be pretty busy compared to brumation season for example. You can also have some forum topics become very popular as say a new pet trend kicks in due to a magazine article or something.



For this 2nd ranking system, the number of posts on the forums fluctuate as you have daily posts being made adding to the number and then twice a week you have the archiving program kicking in and removing posts.. if I remember rightly that tends to happen on Monday and Thursday late at night.



As to what gets archived... each forum has a pre-set number of pages it will always show (usually 3 or 5 pages). Each page can hold 50 threads and an unlimited number of response posts to those threads. The number of threads that are archived depends on how many pages beyond the set number is actually exceeded. If a forum is set for 5 pages (250 threads) and say there was enough activity that week to generate 8 pages (400 threads), then the older 150 threads making up pages 6, 7 & 8 would be archived the next time the program runs, cutting the forum back down to its allotted 5 pages. How many actual posts are archived within those 150 threads would depend on how many responses to those threads were made. Some threads get only a few responses while others can have 30 or more responses. So it's not uncommon for a forum to drop several places down on the ranking list in the space of one night if that forum lost several threads that also had a high number of responses.




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PHWyvern

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