Site suggestion: Auto-close threads older than 6 months.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

You asked this last year too, my response is still the same as it was then:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/856610-suggestion-threads-older-than-2-months-auto-lock-themselves/page__p__592006206entry592006206

Heh, he should have bumped the thread from last year to make his point.

I'm sooooooo bumping this thread in 1 year.

Go bump the old one. Otherwise, I'll see you this time next year :laugh:

[Denis W. Veteran]

There are things that are best left for humans to determine, and not for scripts or some automatic action (such as auto-locking threads) to go off. One example: there were suggestions on how to curb spammers. Examples were disabling links for the first X amount of posts, or initially unapproving new members. Both actions can drive away new members because they have no idea why links aren't working or why their posts aren't showing, and cannot be bothered to stay around a bit longer to make new posts or for staffers to manually approve them.

As for auto-locking threads, there are some support threads that are left without an answer, and there's no guarantee someone will come along and post a solution within 6 months. Also, there might be a thread a person owns that they may want to bump (such as adding an epilogue about a personal story they told months ago). Like with the above examples, it's best staffers use their discretion to remove and lock threads if they're bumped, just as they ban spammers the old fashioned way.

If you haven't noticed already, the news comments do automatically lock after about a month, but it makes sense there as the news articles are strictly for discussion and not for seeking support or sharing anecdotes.

And I just realized I'm regurgitating points that were made already... oops.

[Kenji]

I bloody hate forums that do this.

[redvamp128]

Most of the time, when a user bumps an old thread, it's because they don't realize how old the thread is. I don't think the staff will ever implement an auto-locking feature. Instead, perhaps just add a simple notification to alert the user of how old the thread is. Something unobtrusive but it stands out so that the user will notice it before adding a reply. Then the user can decide either to bump the thread or start a new topic.

The last post in this thread is over 3 years old.

I FULLY SUPPORT THAT IDEA-- Though I think that unobtrusive time limit pop should be placed on threads that are older than 1 year.