The older the SitePoint Forums get, the more of a problem it is when someone casually replies to a thread that’s say 8 or 9 years old and a bunch of people don’t notice the dates and reply in turn.
Take this example:
The question was asked in 2002, but after 8 years of nothing, someone replied to it, causing a bunch of new replies by people with no idea that the posts they’re reading and replying to are 8 years out of date.
Never mind that the replies that do this are often spammy (signature links).
The web has changed in the last 8 years and it’s not good to have people being misled by advice that was good 8 years ago, without realising that it’s far, far, far out of date.
I’d propose either barring replies to threads dead for a long time (eg > 1 year) and/or maybe setting up some sort of “archive” section where all threads are read-only and where it’s clear to casual visitors that the threads are going to be really old.
Does sound like a good idea to have threads automatically close after a certain time—perhaps after a month of no posts. If someone wants to follow up an old thread, they can always start a new one.
because there might be threads that are still relevant after 8 years, or whatever, and it would be a shame to have to start a new thread and potentially loose the comments expressed earlier in the thread.
You don’t lose them; they will always be there as a reference. But on balance, if an issue arises 8 years later, it’s highly likely that it should be dealt with as a new topic. That doesn’t mean there can’t be a link to the old thread as a reference point.
when I said lose, I didn’t mean they are deleted from the forums, I meant they are “lost” from the new thread unless, as you say, there is a link to the old thread or people will have to go search for the old thread if they want to see the old posts for some reason.
But if you have a link in the new thread to the old thread, I would have thought it would be easier and more “user friendly” to just continue posting in the old thread.
