On 19/01/07, Jason Cartwright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'd imagine threaded conversations (which I think is what you are suggesting) are difficult from a usability perspective, as well as technically. Remember this system is probably the first time many users have used a messageboard, and this sucker needs to scale like crazy - given the large numbers bbc.co.uk pushes (2.5bn pages/month on average [1]), particularly when a big news story happens.
That's not the reason at all, the BBC used to have a decent message board system (well an OK one) for it's 6-0-6 message boards, they've replaced it with a blog-like structure against the wishes of most of it's users. In his own blog, the sports editor, Chris Russell was forced to admit it was "too popular" and was being changed more or less to make it harder for people. A similar thing has happened to the today message boards, now only the hacks are allowed to post topics, not the users, this was also the first step in the destruction of the 6-0-6 message boards. The problem is one of a lack of good hardware, not a software one. Basically the BBC needs to beef up the servers that are hosting the message boards.
