MUME

I'm looking for public opinion; pick the value closest to what you think would be most readable.
Feel free to discuss pros and cons of various sizes.

If there's no dominant answer I may make a follow-up poll.

Let me remind you that this means if the last post is number (# of posts per page) - 1 then you have to load that many posts before being able to view the last post

Unlimited might get tedious if we get a 3000 post topic, heh

Humm, I voted for 20, so not too much scrolling. I think the "next page" scrolling will be better if we have sub-forums in the future and if there really is 3000 posts, geez use search

I voted for 10, because if one doesn't have time to read all the new posts in a thread, one doesn't want more than the number one is going to read to be marked as Read. Or, put more simply, there is less chance of unread messages getting marked as read (which could also happen for a variety of other reasons such as a computer crash or power cut / battery failure). That's why I rather like the way MUME boards are implemented in so far as only reading one message at a time (using the mortal commands). Of course, reading one message at a time, together with reloading the entire HTML page would be very tedious waiting for all the new page loads! (Although if it used AJAX, it might work quite nicely, particularly if the next message was always preloaded, and when you clicked Next, it just told the server that the preloaded message is Read and preloaded the next message. But I'm getting off-topic, since that's not likely to be implemented here! )

Is it not possible for the # of posts per page to be configured on a per-user basis? (Like in ElvenRunes.) Because of course then everyone would be happy! Can't see that option in my User Control Panel though.

[EDIT: Hmm, I'm assuming that this version of phpBB remembers which posts have been read and which have not? Version 2 did not (after session time-out), although I note that there is a mod for it (keep unread flags).
Hmm, there seems to be a mod for Version 3 too, so maybe the default install of phpBB3 does not either? [MODDB] View or Mark Unread Posts for PHPBB3. Afraid I don't have time right now to look into it properly, and I expect one of you people knows the answer anyway, so I won't waste my time...]

This is phpBB version 3 (or at least it really really looks like it). That mod does look like it handles the problem, but it would be up to some Administrator if we want to start moding this install or not. It's a long story, but AjaX scripting would almost be rebuilding a new forum and I just don't have time for that right now

To my knowledge, phpBB has never allowed a per user setting for number of posts/page...its a master setting. I could probably mod a version of phpBB to have individual settings, but it would take a little while.

I just updated the setting to 20 posts per page, since currently 85% have voted for at least that many.