Diablo 3 Armory - Unofficial Diablo 3 Fansite

It has been almost 5 years (yes 5) since I launched this site, so I decided to do some cleanup. For both SC2A and D3A, I deleted all topics, posts and polls older than 1.5 years. There were no exceptions to the deletion as it would of been so granular and complicated, so sorry if I deleted something on accident. Here's some quick stats on how much was deleted:

Topics - 16,000
Posts - 300,000
Polls - 1,000
Poll Votes - 40,000
Poll Questions - 5,000

As you can see, we have posted quite a bit for being such a small community. A new system will be set in place to automatically delete any old posts every 24 hours.

On top of the deletion, I have cleaned up the forum categories. Below is a list of changes:

SC2A
- All the modding forums have been merged into 1 forum and supports the tag system
- Polls have been placed under General Discussion
- Any SC2 related forum is now contained under the Starcraft 2 section
- Articles have been removed

D3A
- All the class forums have been merged into 1 forum and supports tags
- Any D3 related forum is now contained under the Diablo 3 section
- Editorials have been removed

Both
- The Content Hub section is now available on both sites instead of just SC2
- Fan Fiction has moved to the Content Hub section

These changes have been made in preparation for the new site design, the Diablo 3 release and the upcoming HOTS and DOTA content. Enjoy!

Cual

Us veterans will remember this day.

on 27/12/11Quote by gearvOsh

For both SC2A and D3A, I deleted all topics, posts and polls older than 1.5 years.

on 27/12/11Quote by gearvOsh

A new system will be set in place to automatically delete any old posts every 24 hours.

Why? If storing all this old data is costing you too much to host, I can understand you making these changes. If not, these changes are utter garbage.

Condensing the forums is great, especially given the current activity level, but deleting our history is not cool.

Wow, I guess it was the domain name/web hosting move...

and bang it lead to some major house cleaning. I like the clean up. Some of the old threads bothered me; such as the David Kim put downs. Simply for the fact that when you googled David Kim SC2 things like this popped up:

David Kim seems to have played this for a while and is somewhere in the C- to C range, while other developers are in the D range. (SC2 Armory topic #11837)

and on it went... I know the pre beta, Blizzard released, battle reports drove everyone nuts. But I'm still happy to see some of those old rude threads go!

Timmay, history isn't important in the least bit when topics are 3 years out of date and are completely meaningless. Even more so since topics get locked anyways after a few weeks of no activity.

Mainly the deletion was to make database backups easier to manage. 100MB of posts is pretty worthless.

on 27/12/11Quote by gearvOsh

Timmay, history isn't important in the least bit when topics are 3 years out of date and are completely meaningless. Even more so since topics get locked anyways after a few weeks of no activity.

Locking threads and deleting them are completely different. Even without being able to unlock old threads, it is still nice to be able to find old threads, with the option of discussing it later, or just looking at it of for the sake of remembering it.

on 27/12/11Quote by gearvOsh

Mainly the deletion was to make database backups easier to manage. 100MB of posts is pretty worthless.

While the majority of posts being deleted will be totally forgettable, I know I am not the only one who goes back to look up and share old gems we used to find funny, interesting, or sad. 100MB is almost nothing these days. If just a few people enjoy just a little of the old content, that has to be worth saving a small chunk of data.

Well agree to disagree.

If you guys really would like to keep certain topics, we can create an archive section.

on 27/12/11Quote by gearvOsh

If you guys really would like to keep certain topics, we can create an archive section.

How would threads be archived if they are automatically locked? Making an entire new thread to say 'Hey I think this closed thread should stay archived" seems like disorganized and sloppy way to do it, and I really don't see any other option in the current system.

Just thinking ahead, I'd prefer having an archive of our better threads.

Reading the old threads is something I enjoy doing, it is nice to be able to look back at old times here, or things you remember. Maybe I am just a bit sentimental, but I like being able to look back at say my old enlisted thread and how far I have come.

Also, clearing the old threads also gets rid of all the old fics, even though they are not kept up does not mean no one likes to read them. I mean due to this we can no longer read any of the great old fan fics, such as all the work of Silent Templar has been wiped out.

I am not too happy with this house cleaning. The creation of an archive would be nice to have.

i agree that it would be nice to have an archive, but i do see gear's logic. not that many people would pay attention to old topics. i would say at least have a small archive of good thread or ones that contain questions/answers that people often need.

either way its good to see that there are some kinds of developments in times of late.

on 27/12/11Quote by Brisingr852

on 27/12/11Quote by gearvOsh

If you guys really would like to keep certain topics, we can create an archive section.

How would threads be archived if they are automatically locked? Making an entire new thread to say 'Hey I think this closed thread should stay archived" seems like disorganized and sloppy way to do it, and I really don't see any other option in the current system.

Just thinking ahead, I'd prefer having an archive of our better threads.

This is something that can be handled personally by the Mods & Staff. If we feel a certain thread deserves to be 'saved', then we can mark it. This of course is for important threads only, for example, BlizzCon information threads or even Grandmaster coaching (from armory members). Just an idea.

Archives would just be a special forum where topics are moved. As for deleted fan fics, if you let me know which ones were deleted I can restore them.

Whoa wait what about the fanfic thread? Did you just remove that stuff? I can understand the game balance threads, the actual release and patches made them useless, but still I would like some of the stories left behind.

Ill just restore the whole fan fic forum, will be the easiest.