It was essentially a hybrid of a chatroom and thread. The "reply" box was at the top of the page (I think) and new posts would automatically appear at the top of the page in real time. After the "live" element of the thread had ended, it would revert to a normal thread for further comments and looking back on what was said. It has been used for elections and Eurovision nights in the past.
It was used for the launch of Good Morning Britain IIRC.
Well remembered! Yes, “live topics” as they were known had posts ordered in reverse and replies would drop in from the top. Think it updated the browser tab title too. The last time it was used was for the BBC News launch at NBH in 2013. The page would poll for new content regularly but unfortunately the number of visitors at 1pm caused a site meltdown that required a call to the hosts and a reboot of the system. Wasn’t the best time for it to have happened 🙈.
Content-wise I think it generally worked pretty well (I was concerned we’d just end up with lots of one or two word posts AKA chatroom style but it wasn’t that bad). If I could get the time to rebuild it in a better technology I would.
The gap in posts in 2002 was, as mentioned, due to a big data failure with the hosts at the time. They restored the website files but did not keep a backup of the database. The original forum posts were stored in files (one per topic) so I had a copy I could import but nothing for the rest of 2002. I was gutted (still am!). A few years ago I restored some users’ original registration dates from the file backups where the name was the same.
:-(
A former member
What makes the search appear and disappear at times.
Yeah I noticed that, what was going on there then? Whoever put that up should take it down or replace the wording with something more reasonable.
Replace the wording? Are you serious? There is only one resolution, the entry has to be removed, because no forum member deserves to be spoken about like that.
Asa will know who made that post.. Im surprised people think an Admin can't see every aspect on this forum.
Oh I know Asa will be able to see who submitted it. But by posting it to the calendar rather than as a forum post their username isn't attached publicly.