If a thread runs to a very great length, say 1000 or more replies, would this cause forum performance to suffer? I know if you go to that thread it will only show 1 page at a time, so maybe the number of posts in the thread makes no difference? Or is the number of posts in the thread still a relevant factor? I'm just wondering whether very long threads are advisable, as to read the latest reply in a thread of 1000 posts is someone therefore causing the forum to get all 1000 posts from the database, calculate the correct number of pages, and display the last (relevant) page?
My suggestion is to keep away from large threads, because they cause problems later.
First, when posting in a large threads -> some pages may be bugged.
And when you get a large thread, it may be a pain to delete it. I had a problem with this, I had 2 large threads which 3k+ posts and I couldn't delete them, I don't even know how I removed them.
Yes r00t3r, I have heard that long threads can be a real problem to delete (although I wasn't thinking of deleting any myself).
The reason I asked the question in the first place is that I noticed some forums automatically close threads when they reach a certain number of posts and some give as the reason for doing so that they are degrading server performance. I wondered if this was correct?