Locking old threads.

Originally Posted by druuna That's for Jeremy to decide, but I would suggest 12 months or older. We are talking about dead and buried threads that are resurrected (like this one: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-pages-477050/ OP hasn't been on-line for a year now....)

Keep in mind that helping the OP is only part of what LQ is about (although admittedly a large part). It's also about being a permanent, live and searchable repository for all things Linux and Open Source that can be beneficial to the entire Open Source ecosystem, whether a member of this particular community or not.

--jeremy

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H There is no use in threads that old, and it is usually necro posts by hit-and-run posters.

I'm curious why you'd think there is no value to older threads?

--jeremy

imho i think a possible better idea would be to automatically put old threads into a moderation queue, thus requiring new posts to a thread that hasn't been replied to in x amount of time to be approved by a moderator (though this would require extra effort on the moderators who are already volunteering their time, thus perhaps not entirely practical)
and i think the point isn't that the thread isn't valuable, but usually not much value to be added to a thread that old, hence perhaps moderator's discression as to whether or not a post to an old thread should be allowed or not, since i believe the point is that often necro posts portend to be contributing to a situation that may have been resolved years in the past, and is only done to increase the poster's post count.

Originally Posted by jeremy Keep in mind that helping the OP is only part of what LQ is about (although admittedly a large part).

I don't see how piling on answers, 6 years after, while the correct answer was already given helps in any way.

This necro posting also has a domino effect: One necro-posts and others immediately follow. Even more, not necessary correct and searchable clutter is generated.

It's also about being a permanent, live and searchable repository for all things Linux and Open Source that can be beneficial to the entire Open Source ecosystem, whether a member of this particular community or not.

The search would have turned up the correct answers. The search results would be cleaner if this thread had been closed after X years.

Sorry, but your reply falls short in my opinion.

Sheesh. If it's such a big deal, why not just ignore the thread?

Originally Posted by jeremy I'm curious why you'd think there is no value to older threads? --jeremy

Originally Posted by druuna I don't see how piling on answers, 6 years after, while the correct answer was already given helps in any way. This necro posting also has a domino effect: One necro-posts and others immediately follow. Even more, not necessary correct and searchable clutter is generated. The search would have turned up the correct answers. The search results would be cleaner if this thread had been closed after X years. Sorry, but your reply falls short in my opinion.

Well, the main problem with old threads is that things change over time, sometimes very much, and an issue 5 or 10 years ago may not mean anything today. Of course, it may still mean something today, and I understand that this is why the threads are not closed, because the information might still be relevant today and might help someone.

However, there is the problem that druuna mentions, when a necro post happens, it is usually irrelevant or not helpful and it spawns more often also irrelevant. I don't think that this is helpful either.

Maybe you should not close the old threads but somehow not allow irrelevant necro posts.

I was thinking why not put a higher minimum character limit for older posts, that way necro posters are forced to make a larger post that may contain more information, or force them because of the inconvenience to abandon their attempt. You can put an explanation of this along with the warning that warns people when necro posting. Many necro posters add one irrelevant sentence to an ancient thread. I say force them to post a paragraph that way it may contain more relevant info ... or it may not.

I've seen this thread come by often enough to realize that Jeremy will not auto close old threads.

Restricting necro posting would be sort of a solution; One can only necro post (threads older then x months/years) if the senior member status is reached (or some other point, but make this one restrictive!). This will definitely take care of a large amount of necro posters.

This has been touched on numerous times before, here, here, and here at the very least.This is at the very least the 4th thread, 3rd by the OP, on this issue.

Whats the definition of stupidity? Doing the same exact thing more than once and expecting a different result. Seriously this has been discussed many times and the only thing that is new that has come into it is what can only be discribed as a temper tantrum. If they are so annoying to people then maybe take 5 seconds out of your busy day and note the date of the OP. I do it and have posted in many threads that the thread is old when others have restarted it. If you don't feel like telling the person who has resurected an old thread that it is old spare yourself the angst grab a beverage and take a deep breath.

For the record, I am opposed to the idea of automatically locking old threads. I actively dislike this practice when I see it on other forums.

How about moving posts older than five years into an archive area, containing the same sub-fora as the main board? I am not suggesting that the idea is ideal or even practical, but simply throwing it out for people to mull over.

Automatic tagging of the threads older than X time:

[OLD]How to do this in Suse 9.1? [SOLVED]How to do that in Suse 12.2?

?

This will at least prevent syg00 from clicking the thread and then
cursing the poster!

I think the real problem is that time gaps between posts are not sufficiently visible to the reader. Perhaps the whitespace between posts could be increased in proportion to the time elapsed between them. Or the colour of the bar above each post could fade to grey as it gets older.

I saw a post where over the course of maybe 4 years some issue was never resolved. At last someone dredged it up and solved it.


Good or bad the old posts have to be taken into context and used if needed.

I wrote a Greasemonkey script that implements my suggestion:

// ==UserScript==
// @name Old Posts Whitespace
// @namespace http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/user/ntubski-218752/
// @description insert whitespace between posts proportional to the time elapsed between them
//
// @match *://www.linuxquestions.org/*
// ==/UserScript==

var posts = document.evaluate(
    "/html/body//div[@id='posts']/div[not(@id='lastpost')]",
    document,     // context node
    null,         // namespace resolver
    XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE,
    null          // result (null means create new)
);

var current_ms = Date.now();
var ONE_DAY_MS=1000*60*60*24;
var DATE_XPATH = document.createExpression(".//td[@class='thead']/a/following-sibling::text()", null);
var PLACE_SUFFIXES = /st|nd|rd|th/i
var TODAY = /Today/i
var YESTERDAY = /Yesterday/i
var last_post_ms = null;

for (var i = 0; i < posts.snapshotLength; i++) {
    var post = posts.snapshotItem(i);

    var date_node = DATE_XPATH.evaluate(post, XPathResult.STRING_TYPE, null);
    var post_date = date_node.stringValue.trim();
    var post_ms =
        (TODAY.test(post_date))? current_ms:
        (YESTERDAY.test(post_date))? current_ms - ONE_DAY_MS:
        Date.parse(post_date.replace(PLACE_SUFFIXES, ""));

    if (isNaN(post_ms)) {
        GM_log("can't parse date: '"+post_date+"'");
        break;
    }

    if (last_post_ms) {
        var space = document.createElement('div');
        var diff_ms = (post_ms - last_post_ms);
        var diff_days = diff_ms / ONE_DAY_MS;
        var px = Math.round(diff_days) + 'px';
        space.style.height = px;
        post.insertBefore(space, post.firstChild);
    }

    last_post_ms = post_ms;
}

Install and enable Greasemonkey, then save above code as oldposts-space.user.js, and open it (Ctrl+O) with Firefox. Note you must set the date format in LQ options to one that includes the full year (Expanded US, Expanded European or ISO 8601).

Originally Posted by frieza imho i think a possible better idea would be to automatically put old threads into a moderation queue, thus requiring new posts to a thread that hasn't been replied to in x amount of time to be approved by a moderator (though this would require extra effort on the moderators who are already volunteering their time, thus perhaps not entirely practical) and i think the point isn't that the thread isn't valuable, but usually not much value to be added to a thread that old, hence perhaps moderator's discression as to whether or not a post to an old thread should be allowed or not, since i believe the point is that often necro posts portend to be contributing to a situation that may have been resolved years in the past, and is only done to increase the poster's post count.

Thanks for the feedback, we'll keep this one in mind as a possible future enhancement.

--jeremy