Should threads automatically lock after a certain age?
 

Should it be possible to "resurrect a four-year old thread?"

Or should a thread become locked after a certain period of time?

I can see where you're coming from. Although there are occasions when posters necro a thread on here, it doesn't happen very often and sometimes it actually adds benefit e.g. to inform folk about long-standing bugs that have been solved with new software or kernel releases. Personally, I feel that the auto issuing of a warning to the poster when they're about to necro a thread, which happens at present, along with some choice advisory words from other posters if a thread is necroed with undue reason, are sufficient. It's certainly worth discussing though...

:-) I'd completely forgotten that this had been brought up so recently, even though I posted on the thread!

As obviously did the OP.

Tough one, if you ask me. While I think that closing threads that are old is a good idea, take NS2 for example. Lots of threads on here that are years old, but you continually get new posters shoving things in there asking for handouts, or having problems that are answered earlier in that multi-page thread. On one hand yes, they necroposted...on the other, do we really want 75 threads of the exact same question littering things??

As a general rule, I'd be all about locking old threads.

Unless I'm missing something, you brought this up less than a month ago and I posted my thoughts along with a link to previous discussions in that thread.

--jeremy

If they where. Then no one could revive them. and we not be able to see someone saying to us. Hey you do relies that this thread is over 5 years old, after a hand full of others have finally answered this persons question.

why take away the fun in that?

I agree with hydrurga.

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Steve Stites

I do realize per Jeremy's comments that this topic has been revisited numerous times.

Well, the "Are you sure?" temporary blocking step isn't working.

Perhaps a couple of adaptions might be helpful:

1. If any thread is beyond a certain age, say 2 years. It is closed and can only be re-opened upon request
2. If a thread is Solved and older than 6 months, same as #1
3. If a thread is not Solved, but also newer than 2 years, same rules apply where the re-activator gets an "Are you sure?" prompt. Perhaps add to that a check box where they have to scroll down, implying they've read a statement discussing the possible non-effectiveness of reopening an old discussion and then had to check the box to say they acknowledge IN ADDITION to just clicking OK beyond the warning screen

My point being that the warning screen doesn't necessarily work.

My additional thought is that I feel about 90% of the necro posts are non-relevant. Many I see are a newbie who posted some helpful solution that no longer matters, they hear about it from one or many and then either disappear entirely or go participate in other discussions which are more current. And I fully say this with the recent history that someone did necro a 10 month old thread yesterday where I noted it to them, but was light hearted in noting it, and turns out that the OP saw the reply and did like seeing the added info. I do realize in some cases additions are relevant.

Necro may refer to: necro-, the Greek prefix meaning death · Necro (rapper) (born 1976), an American rapper. Necro (EP)

'cute' choice of prefixes ;)

Ninety percent of everything is crap

I don't know why people are getting so upset about bad posts just because they happen to be "necro" posts. Maybe we should lock new threads too, that way we'll never get irrelevant posts :rolleyes:

I'm fairly sure that this new thread was prompted by a recent case of clear abuse:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...7/#post5675118

This thread was started at 08:51 AM today. The abuse case cited was started at 01:49 PM today. If there is any relationship between the threads it was this thread prompting the abuse thread.

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Steve Stites

What "abuse"? I see a bad joke followed by pointless finger wagging. Would the joke be better if it was posted to a recent thread?