Hi,

I’m sure I’m not the only one irked by those who resurrect long dormant threads.

Would it be possible to check new post’s creation-date against the creation-date of the last post by the thread’s creator? If the elapsed time is greater than something reasonable (say 4 weeks) , prompt the current poster to consider making a new thread or even disallow said posts. The thread creator should always be able to post a bump if they are still seeking feedback.

In addition, if a thread has not been closed after some duration (6 weeks?), would it be possible to close it out automatically with some status such that it would no longer show up in the unanswered listings? The original poster could be sent an email stating that such an action has occurred and could reopen the thread by posting a bump request.

Thanks for reading my rants.

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prompt the current poster to consider making a new thread

We already do this.

In addition, if a thread has not been closed after some duration (6 weeks?), would it be possible to close it out automatically with some status such that it would no longer show up in the unanswered listings?

We do not automatically close threads because they get the majority of their traffic in the weeks, months, and years following their creation, and it's possible that someone six months down the line might be able to provide an answer.

If the elapsed time is greater than something reasonable (say 4 weeks) , prompt the current poster to consider making a new thread or even disallow said posts

We already put up a notification on the quick reply for older threads, any more than that would be excessive, I think.

In addition, if a thread has not been closed after some duration (6 weeks?), would it be possible to close it out automatically with some status such that it would no longer show up in the unanswered listings?

This comes up a lot, and the final word from on high (ie. Dani) is that we want people to be able to continue discussions even if they're old. And my own personal experience from other forums is that automatically closing threads is a horrible solution that stifles the community as a whole.

The problem is pointless bumps with things like "me too" or "thanks for sharing" (usually these end up just being signature spam), and hijacking an old thread with a new question. For those cases the post falls under our Keep It Organized rule and should be reported for moderation.

Thanks for the replies.

If the elapsed time is greater than something reasonable (say 4 weeks) , prompt the current poster to consider making a new thread or even disallow said posts

We already put up a notification on the quick reply for older threads

I was not aware of this as I did not want to commit an act that I find irritating to dicovert this fact. (Live and learn)

I've not been on a forum that automatically closed threads, but have been on one where a Moderator could mark the thread as answered. Unfortunately, they had irritating habit of marking their own post as the answer often when it was totally irrelevant to the original question or worse totally incorrect.

I guess that I just seen to many several year old threads dug up recently in which the new poster displayed their ignorance and this prompts others to add to the issue.

Thanks for the info.

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