Holt CJ,
A fascinating thread which we hope will continue to be graced with your thoughts on the subject.
I can categorically assure you that closure of threads at the hundred mark is a purely technical issue here at the Towers.
However, the closure is also the most opportune moment for us to exercise an editorial decision we had been putting off. The thread has not sat comfortably with the either the Rumours and News remit or the international nature of this forum in particular.
While the headline figure of numbers on the forum may initially appear seductive it is a false indication. That number is hugely diluted by the number of active threads here which are being viewed. Obviously we have much more accurate indications on the number of individual threads being viewed and the time each thread is on the screen.
Without wishing to belittle the debate in any way it has garnered a dedicated band of viewers and contributors and it is time for it to move over to Aircrew Notices. I genuinely hope that this will not prevent you from making further contributions to this or other threads.
Regarding the creation of a Legal Issues forum I'm afraid we are having to write two or three times a week turning down requests for new forums. To you and all those we have written to privately it is simply a case of restricted resources both technical and financial. Beneath the soft pastel colours of these pages the present 68 forums are stretching us to the absolute limit. We are using what little time we have left over from running the site to address the financial problems of commisioning yet another server and paying for our present 180 gigabytes of bandwith usage let alone our future requirements.
There is no shortage of IT professionals visiting this site who can easily get a quote for the bandwidth we are using along with daily tape backup of a basic raid array. Although hugely assisted by a band of wonderful moderators the site is essentially on your screen due to the efforts of just 3 people working in their spare time at home while holding down fairly demanding jobs.
Bearing that in mind I suspect the costs involved will make the aforesaid IT pro's blanche at the prospect of running something like this site after hours!
Rob
[ 05 September 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Towers ]