New user IDs.

[Erki]

What's the deal with new user ID numbers? Why can't I have my good old 13452? Now I have some ugly 80654. :rolleyes: Mark's ID used to be 1, now it's 67285. But I don't remember having 60+k members on this forum. There were like less than 30,000 members when the new forums came so the question is...

where did that 67285 come from?

Another question is that IIRC, when the new forums came, old members had to "upgrade" their accounts - what's the deal with their IDs? There are something like 13,000 ID numbers between me and Mark now. I thought that the new IDs came from "first came, first served" basis but looks like they depend on the old forum IDs.

I think this is much more pressing issue that the age-old "top or side" and sig line issues. :p :

[schmenke]

What's a user ID?
How do I know what mine is?
What's it used for?

Inquiring minds want to know!

[Drew]

Erki, you have too much time to spare :p :

[tinchote]

What's a user ID?
How do I know what mine is?
What's it used for?

Inquiring minds want to know!


It's a unique number that identifies the users of these forums.

Yours is 70622. In most browsers you can see it when you put the mouse pointer over your name; otherwise, clicking it will open your profile page, and you can see your id number on the url on top.

I guess it's used to identify you in the database (most likely the number makes your record more directly accessible, otherwise the program would need to do a search using your forum name).

[Erki]

Interesting that this forum operates with ID numbers for members and threads and subforums and everything. I know there are vBulletin forums that have URLs like http://www.forum.com/forums/subforum-name/[thread number--two threads can have same name]-thread-name.html or http://www.forum.com/forums/members/username.html
I wonder why this kind of system wasn't implemented here.

[Valve Bounce]

Erki - please come back to F1; we need some input there from you. :(

[Erki]

Erki - please come back to F1; we need some input there from you. :(

Why? Has telemetry grown over your heads there? :p

[Mark]

Interesting that this forum operates with ID numbers for members and threads and subforums and everything. I know there are vBulletin forums that have URLs like www.forum.com/forums/subforum-name/ (http://www.forum.com/forums/subforum-name/)[thread number--two threads can have same name]-thread-name.html or www.forum.com/forums/members/username.html (http://www.forum.com/forums/members/username.html)
I wonder why this kind of system wasn't implemented here.

Probably because they are using flat file html which is horrendously slow whereas we use a database. There are hacks you can get to make the URL look more 'friendly' but it's not offensive to me so why change it :p

I do miss having userid 1 ! It came about because of the process of migrating the users from the old forum onto the new one, it kept going wrong because the server we were using was well dodgy, and I had to keep repeating it, and that's how the numbers kept increasing. Same deal with the forumid's really.

[Erki]

So the IDs aren't "reusable"? But who has the user ID 1 now? Mystery... :p