Paul sent me code. I'm the bottleneck -- trying to find time to fine toothed comb it.

Well, I thought the idea of the Nilly Hollywood page is that it wouldn't use any database resources.

Right. That was one idea. But there was also the suggestion that we redirect external links to the front page.

I was envisioning it as a combination, I guess. People get redirected to the front page and there's a link to the Nilly thread. But who knows? Maybe it wouldn't make any difference.

We can worry about it if it turns out to be an issue.

I was kind of weirded out by the idea of having such an archive (Hey! Look at us! Important folks stop by cuz we da COOLEST!) but I think something small on the right hand side, "Nilly Goes to Hollywood!" for example, would be funnier and help.

I mostly agree with Allyson, but just a few points regarding that:

• There are already links to the PTB visits in 'my' town (like here), and formerly in the Bureaucracy thread on WX, so it seems like the only difference, in order to ease things on the server, will mainly be in putting the content of the post in a HTML page, as the tracking them down are already done as it is.

• How complicated, HTML-wise, will a maintenance of such a page be? Because, in case we decide we want to do it, I'm making my baby-steps in HTML, and I'd love to both learn more and help while doing it, if I can.

• I'm highly amused by the Hollywood trip that is being planned for me here. I should probably start packing.

How about reserving a redirect only as a emergency failsafe if Joss or Tim aor anyone else posting results in a flood?

If someone makes a post that causes a huge jump in hits, the post can be moved to a static page by a stompy. That stompy can also invoke the redirect protocol, or contact ita for same, and the site can redirect embedded links to the front page, or a special splash page with something like:

We're sorry, the massive traffic a recent posting has caused us to redirect embedded links from other sites. Click here to read the post or posts that caused the ruckus, or click here to continue on to the foamy Buffistas website.

Just an idea. Feel free to tweak or reject.

How, then, am I going to find the discussion around Joss mentioning the movie? Search? Threadsuck? Paging through until I find it? None of those ease things up.

I was envisioning it as a combination, I guess. People get redirected to the front page and there's a link to the Nilly thread. But who knows? Maybe it wouldn't make any difference.

If we redirected links to the frontpage, we would just need to have prominent wording about "If you are looking for posts from Joss or Tim (or other ME VIPs) , they can eb found HERE (link to Nilly)". right?

Generally, when some outside place links to a VIP quote, they've already quoted the VIP. People who follow the link will want to read the posts around it for context. If we set up a special page with the VIP quote, most folks will still poke around trying to find the discussion from which it arose. That ends up using more resources, not less. Leaving things as they are may well be the most efficient way of dealing with this.

Except for the part where a newcomer may not know to go to Nillytown for a quick link.

And that only works if you're looking for a VIP post. If it was fic or funny or anything else that someone just e-mailed you, you'd be SOL.

Except for the part where a newcomer may not know to go to Nillytown for a quick link.

Was that a response to me? When I say "leave things as they are", I'm assuming that the outside place is already providing a direct link. I'm saying that redirecting to the front page can be bad for exactly your reason (among others), Jesse.