The resurrection of year old forum topics (we need a closed topic button)
So this has been brought up a few times before but we seriously need a way trusted members of the site (like the feature team) and the staff can close topics.
Because lately alot of topics have been resurrected.
And although some topics (like posting games or so) should be able to stay open for posting most of the other topics should be closed after a while.
For example some guy responded to an "old ipod" topic that was posted more then two years ago and had zero replies before he replied. It's highly unlikely that that guy will still respond let alone be interested in the message "nobody's going to give you an ipod"
So my suggestion is that the members of the feature team and the staff get a "close topic" button. This way when a patch contest or forum bug or somet other old topic in that matter is closed/solved/simply to old they close down the topic.
The topic then gets moved to a special section called "closed topics" where it's open for viewing but posting is not available anymore.
I know this has been suggested a few times before but I'm just putting it back out there because I think we really need something like this on the site.
Suggestions and or thoughts are welcome and encouraged :)
Michel
Comments
10 years ago
Instead of moving the forum topic and/or locking out comments, just prevent the system from sending the forum topic to the top of the stack. This can be done by having the system check for a flag when a comment is posted and if it is just neglect to update the timestamp(or whatever is used) that used to order the posts. This will still allow users to comment but prevent it from jumping in front of newer, more active topics. This should solve the zombie problem but still allow valuable feedback to be added by future 'ables members.
11 years ago
You could flag them, but that would increase administrative burden, same as doing anything else.
L
Reply 11 years ago
Flagging has the eventual consequence of deletion/removal. What Michel (and others) are suggesting is "locking," a facility that many other discussion-board systems have. It keeps the information content available archivally, but avoids the zombification problem.
Reply 11 years ago
It was my understanding that flagged-content was just made non-searchable. The problem seems to occur when new(ish) users go searching for topics to comment on.
Locking sounds OK, but if new comments aren't worth having, is the topic?
I have deleted some of mine, and should probably have another round...
L
Reply 11 years ago
Well I'm thinking of bugreports, announcements of Wilhelm that are important and stuff like that. It should be able to view but not comment anymore.
Also question topics with answers and generally all stuff that has been discussed. Why not close all of the old ones? It would be the same as the topics are now but they don't get resurrected anymore.
And then when we have that option it's up to the staff to see if some of the topics should be deleted or not but that can wait you know.
Reply 11 years ago
I've diarised this topic for a bump in 12 months time...
L
11 years ago
Hi, Michel. I've moved this to Help:Feedback -- that's where the Staff explicitly look for commentary about the site like this.
As you note, this has been raised before; I don't know whether it's percolating up the priority list, but maybe now that some of Eric and Christy's topics have been victims, it might get some attention :-/
Reply 11 years ago
Okay thanks, I didn't know where to put this and thought that community was the best fitting as it is a community problem.
Yeah I've seen lately that his topics get back to life alot to. The main problem is members searching for something and then they come at a topic but don't check the date and then start replying to old stuff. I personally always check the date of the topic but many don't .