How does SitePoint work?

[ashattuc]

Hello there,

I just had a few questions about the SitePoint forum, and was hoping someone out there might be able to help me with, or direct me to the answers:

1) How much hard drive space does a forum like SitePoint take for its database?

2) How much bandwidth does SitePoint need per month to run?

3) Is there anyplace on the forums where I could find out the specific functions of the Moderators, Advisors, Mentors and Team Leaders (and any other ranks there are that aren't mentioned)?

Thank you,
Chris

[z0s0]

At this very second the answers are...

1) Forum database is 998M. Images / PHP code etc will add to that a little.

2) LOTS. 100GB / month or so? Maybe... Really don't know to be honest. ;-)

3) Someone else might be able to answer this one.

[platinum]

ahh 100gb/month isn't bad for forums as big as SP

Yeah, basically with the ranks:

Admin's / Community Director
Oversees the running of the forum and basically does Admin type stuff.

Team Leaders.
Lead the various teams the staff are split up into. The teams are "design", "programming", "hosting", "Business and Management" and "community". They have the equiv. powers of advisors as well

Advisors
Essentially advisors moderate the forums, remove spam, move threads, moderate posts/attachments and handle general forum stuff.

Mentors
Mentors are talented individuals who are seen as natural "leaders". They are chosen to guide the forum's in the right direction and report posts, and keep track of forum happenings. Also they play a major role in the various team projects and scoping out "fresh blood" for mentorship.

[earther]

3) Is there anyplace on the forums where I could find out the specific functions of the Moderators, Advisors, Mentors and Team Leaders (and any other ranks there are that aren't mentioned)?

This doesn't discuss ranks but it does let you know more about the Team Leaders: http://www.sitepointforums.com/showgroups.php

[ashattuc]

Thank you very much, z0s0, Platinum and earther, that's a pretty healthy sized database. I have a couple more questions as well, if you don't mind.

1) Does SitePoint have their own server?

2) How far back do the posts go? How many years' worth of postings are in the database?

3) Does SitePoint ever "prune" their database, i.e. get rid of old posts?

Thanks again, I may have a couple more questions later as well. The reason for these questions is because I am going to be setting up a forum pretty soon, and it has the potential of becoming fairly large (well, we'll see how it goes), and SitePoint is the best forum I've been a part of. The amount of involvement of the community is amazing, the degree of curtesy that is maintained is particularly striking (I've never seen a curse word, and only one real insult since I've been here), and the database of information collected is surprisingly comprehensive. You have it all! So, needless to say your forum is my mentor, and that's why I'm asking all the questions!

Thanks again,
Chris

[z0s0]

1) We have 2 servers - one for sitepoint.com and one for the forums.

2 / 3) We never prune posts. So the posts go back to day 1.

[website]

and day 1 is ? (somewhere in 1998 I guess?)

[Hierophant]

and day 1 is ? (somewhere in 1998 I guess?)

June 19th, 1999. However, the posts here only go back to August 24th, 2000. Before that the site used UBB.Classic and had to prune posts every six weeks just to keep the forums running.