By eblues on

I want to start a monthly Giveaway on my site. I've been reading through the forums, and there have been a few discussions on this before, but not really a solid solution, especially not for Drupal 6.

I can work up the display portion of this project easy enough, but I'm still unsettled on how to best handle entries. I'd prefer not to use a third party module, unless there's a compelling reason to do so. I've come up with two solutions for recording entries so far. I can let users register through the use of comments, or I can create a Content Type "Giveaway Entry" or some such and let users submit their entries as a node.

I'm not crazy about the comment option because comment management is pretty limited in Drupal, and deleting 50-100 comments every month to start a new contest seems like it would be a hassle with this method.

I just thought of a question about comments. When a node is deleted, what happens to the comments. Do they get removed from the database as well? If they do, this might be one way to handle it.

Using the Content Type method, wiping out the entries each month would be a snap, but I'm concerned about the long term health of the website and database if I routinely create then delete 50-100 nodes every month. I'm assuming that node numbers for deleted content do not get recycled, and so they would just keep climbing and climbing over time (potentially into the 1,000s).

Is there a cap on how large node numbers can grow in Drupal? Would there be any negative effects of using this method.

thanks in advance for any input or suggestions.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

carnevaledesign’s picture

carnevaledesign commented

Your site can, technically, have an infinite amount of nodes. Why are you opposed to using third-party modules?

eblues’s picture

eblues commented

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't use Drupal for what I need if it weren't for contributed modules... including Views, CCk, SMTP Support, Captcha and a few others. And I'm amazed that this kind of capability is available and so heavily supported for FREE.

But I am concerned about putting heavy dependence on 3rd party modules that may or may not make it to the next revision of Drupal, such as the case with the Competition module.

I've just decided to try using the Comment method for starters. With the monthly wiping out of the contestant list and starting over, if I don't like how it's working out it won't be a biggie to switch another method later.