Just thought of something.

I was sitting here on a few different forums and I had a thought.
Every now and again here on MG we'll get the occasional user who uses the search function and necroposts a 2-3 year old thread. Would it be possible to code a "time lock" into the forum where after a reasonable amount of time. ( When I was thinking about it, I used 3 months) and the thread be closed? So as to have older threads for more of a reference/archive type instead of it having to be mentioned about watching the post dates of the thread.
Just a thought, and if this forum is vBulliten coded I think it is possible to implement a "time lock", but don't quote me on that.

What do you as the community think?
Questions, comments, criticisms, queries, remarks?

Spock96 :major

 

I vote yes

And the OP can re-open if necessary

 

What do you mean by "re-open" Zack?

Holy crap, Zack is still around lol.

 

3 months was just the time I used as an example, you could use any amount of time.

 

If nothing else, there should be a default to sort by the newest posts/threads first.

 

Thanks Laura this is a nicely balanced reply

I agree, some newbies seem to feel overwhelmed about making what might be their first post ever and especially if it is asking for help from strangers. I have been both an admin and a moderator on a couple of forums and seen this first hand.

Having solutions to unsolved problems is also nice and although maybe no use to the OP, this forum has huge numbers of guests who visit and are just reading or looking for ideas on how to go about fixing their particular problem. In many cases (mine included) these solutions can help these guests without them even having to ask for help which saves work for staff :cool after all as a guest I had several reading sessions of the stickies for malware removal and found them very informative and helpful so then I decided to join because I thought I may have something to give back to the forum that had helped me

Maybe have a flag or a big hourglass icon or even a different colour border on posts that are older than say 9 months so people are immediately aware it is an old post and won't accidentally reply to them..... just thinkin out loud but other ppl may think this is just unnecessary :crap

I also agree with Spock that old threads should be closed off and so then the choice of timeframe becomes important. I personally would favour a long time period especially if the thread had no final solution but other ppl may have different views. Posts older than 12 months are probably no longer very relevant but still, they can be handy for reference or for historical reasons.

@ Laura you don't need to be an owner to have a valid point of view

Cheers

 

"Maybe have a flag or a big hourglass icon or even a different colour border on posts that are older than say 9 months so people are immediately aware it is an old post and won't accidentally reply to them..... just thinkin out loud but other ppl may think this is just unnecessary"

I like that! Sometimes I forget to look at the date when searching...

 

Can't you set that in the User Control Panel?!?

 

Never thought of using a color. That would be a good idea.

 

I agree with Laura, knowing well how the moderator CP's work I know myself I would feel it's much less work to simply move a post than enforce a coding system.
A time code would possibly cause more work by people asking the mods to re-open threads etc.
Also some threads continue on for months if not years "WAYLT" for example, other threads are updated once in a while, such as a thread I have about my lifestyle change "Diet" and another about my PC Case mod in the Cooling and Modding area.
At this rate that one could be unfinished for several months from the original post.
Also a good example of what I'm saying, the Case mod thread is the only one of it's kind on this forum (as far as I could find) and I created such a detailed post to help anyone who wanted to cut up a case, also to chronicle it for myself but, in 3 years from now if someone reads through it and has a question for me of how I did something etc then they would not be able to post it. This is true of many posts here.

I understand the idea and it would work very well in some forums, but it's one of those things that as Laura said is probably easier to deal with as it happens, since it's not like it happens every day.

 

How about we just punish the folks who thread necro? :-D

 

Very good points Ned, I never thought about those types of threads. :-D