Stopping necro-posting

[Maitimo]

It is getting a bit ridiculous, when a thread that's five years old gets bumped up. How about automatically locking all posts that haven't had a response within a certain time, say 6 or 12 months. 

It wouldn't affect long-running but active threads, if it only counts time since the last post.

 

[So Whimsy]

I am in favor of this.

Edit: Good read

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by Syn Anatine

[Selene Gregoire]

15 minutes ago, Matty Luminos said:

It is getting a bit ridiculous, when a thread that's five years old gets bumped up. How about automatically locking all posts that haven't had a response within a certain time, say 6 or 12 months. 

It wouldn't affect long-running but active threads, if it only counts time since the last post.

 

LL isn't going to go to the expense and manpower it would take to accomplish this. I've been on a lot of different forums over the past 20 years and not one of them ever locked threads due to age. None. It is not cost effective.

Edited March 10, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Wulfie Reanimator]

10 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

LL isn't going to go to the expense and manpower it would take to accomplish this. I've been on a lot of different forums over the past 20 years and not one of them ever locked threads due to age. None. It is not cost effective.

There are a bunch of forums that auto-lock threads due to age. It takes zero manpower. Especially with prepackaged forum software like this forum, it's a matter of changing a setting.

Edited March 10, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Selene Gregoire]

34 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

There are a bunch of forums that auto-lock threads due to age. It takes zero manpower. Especially with prepackaged forum software like this forum, it's a matter of changing a setting.

Like you said, it depends on the forum software. Not all of them have that feature, like I said.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

Just now, Selene Gregoire said:

Like you said, it depends on the forum software. Not all of them have that feature, like I said.

This one does for a fact. I'm a moderator on another forum with the same software.

[Selene Gregoire]

1 minute ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

This one does for a fact. I'm a moderator on another forum with the same software.

Got a link to the documentation? I'm curious about how it's set up.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

5 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Got a link to the documentation? I'm curious about how it's set up.

No, I'm not part of the web team that maintains the backend.

[Jerilynn Lemon]

Two years after the final (?) post is made on this subject, someone will post a response.

Gotta love it.

 

[Selene Gregoire]

21 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

No, I'm not part of the web team that maintains the backend.

Wait. The setting has to be changed on the backend? That's not what I thought you meant.

Anyway, I'm sure if LL thought it was something worth flipping the switch on, they would have done so long ago, if the switch was included in what they paid/pay for. 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

20 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Wait. The setting has to be changed on the backend? That's not what I thought you meant.

Anyway, I'm sure if LL thought it was something worth flipping the switch on, they would have done so long ago, if the switch was included in what they paid/pay for. 

The "backend" is the "plugins and settings" panel for the forum as a whole. Regular moderators on our forum don't have access to fiddle with how the forum generally functions. And even if we could, we wouldn't, because it shouldn't be up to the whims of a single moderator which features are enabled at any moment. Things like that would be discussed as a group, and changes would be made only if a positive consensus was made.

You are sort of correct in that "if LL wanted to do it, they would've done it already." Maybe the necroposting hasn't been a big enough issue from their perspective.

My observations of how the Lindens moderate could indicate many reasons why certain decisions are/aren't made.

Edited March 10, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Selene Gregoire]

1 minute ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The "backend" is the "plugins and settings" panel for the forum as a whole. Regular moderators on our forum don't have access to fiddle with how the forum generally functions. And even if we could, we wouldn't, because it shouldn't be up to the whims of a single moderator which features are enabled at any moment.

You are sort of correct in that "if LL wanted to do it, they would've done it already." Maybe the necroposting hasn't been a big enough issue from their perspective.

My observations of how the Lindens moderate could indicate many reasons why certain decisions are/aren't made.

You aren't telling me anything I haven't known for many years. I have owned a few forums myself. Did a bit of modding the code and skinning.

There hasn't been enough malicious necroposting, like the fairly recent episode of one idiot spamming the front page of GD with 8 year old threads, to warrant flipping the switch. Most necroposting isn't malicious.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

34 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

You aren't telling me anything I haven't known for many years.

2 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

LL isn't going to go to the expense and manpower it would take to accomplish this. I've been on a lot of different forums over the past 20 years and not one of them ever locked threads due to age. None. It is not cost effective.

 

[Selene Gregoire]

26 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

 

Just what are you trying to imply?

[Phil Deakins]

I think that Wulfie is implying that you first wrote that it would take expense and manpower to accomplish it, i.e. write and add the code to do it because forums don't have that capability, and then, when Wulfie pointed out that no code needs to be written, because it's just a click in this particular software, you wrote that he isn't telling you anything you didn't already know. I think that's what he's pointing out.

You may have meant that he isn't telling you anything you don't already know about something different to what I've just written, but that's the way I read your posts and maybe Wulfie did too.

I agree with the thread's topic. I see no reason not to lock threads that haven't been added to in a very long time. If this software really does have that switch, and if the 'active' period can be set, then, imo, it was idiotic not to flick it ages ago when we had spam posts that were posted so that the spammers/bots could come back at a later date and modify them to link to whatever website is being promoted in the search engines, without the posts being bumped. It would have been done in seconds, rather than the time/measures it took to eventually get rid of that stuff.

Edited March 10, 2019 by Phil Deakins

[LittleMe Jewell]

I was poking around on the site for the forum software itself and found info about a plugin that seems to have been initially released middle of last year.  Based on that, it sounds like the feature to auto-lock based on last post date doesn't exist in the base software.  However, if memory serves, I vaguely remember LL commenting in other posts about this topic that they think some old topics have purpose and should be allowed to be resurrected - so I'm not sure if they'd ever really consider putting in the auto-lock feature.

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/446765-auto-lock-topics-support/?tab=comments#comment-2750516

[Solar Legion]

Oh for ...

So, which is it hmm? Should users post to a pre-existing thread if they have something to add or have a comment to make or should they make a new thread?

Make up your (collective) minds.

Better yet - see a thread that is obviously fairly old? Move right on by if you're that put out.

And yes, you can tell how old a thread is: Right under the bloody title it tells you who started it and when. Most recent post is over on the right with the forum avatar of said recent poster. This is something present even when the forum has auto sized to Mobile view.

[Selene Gregoire]

8 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

You may have meant that he isn't telling you anything you don't already know about something different to what I've just written, but that's the way I read your posts and maybe Wulfie did too.

You're both too far out in left field.

[Resi Pfeffer]

Whats wrong with a necro? Gave us so many laughters in the past, and still will do.

[rasterscan]

Just because some information is 5 years old or more it does not render said information irrelevant nor redundant. If said information becomes fashionable or pertinent at a later date then so be it. imhfo.

[Coffee Pancake]

Which is based on the assumption that people who necro read the whole thread (or even some of it)

THEY DO NOT

Just blindly reply to the last (probably semi off topic) post that killed the conversation in the first place. 

The information carried by zombie posts has no value, engaged users talking to each other today does, a fresh thread by the very nature of it being more recent is always more relevant.

[rasterscan]

5 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

... Just blindly reply to the last (probably semi off topic) post that killed the conversation in the first place. The information carried by zombie posts has no value ...

I've managed to keep my car going for 10 years using posts from motoring forums, nuggets like how to reset the computer and stuff, so old posts are sometimes invaluable. In a second life scenario there are some womderful scripting nuggets out there still useful some 10 years later. So ...

[Phil Deakins]

7 minutes ago, rasterscan said:

Just because some information is 5 years old or more it does not render said information irrelevant nor redundant. If said information becomes fashionable or pertinent at a later date then so be it. imhfo.

You are correct, and nobody is suggesting that old threads become unavailable. The suggestion is merely to lock them so that they don't get necroed with posts that reply to something as though the something was written yesterday.

It's no big deal, really. People often don't notice that the post they are replying to was written as a reply to something that was written years before, so usually the necro post is a total waste of time for everyone, as are any replies to it. Occasionally, someone does a search, finds an old thread that applies, perhaps doesn't notice how long it's been since the thread was last posted to but that doesn't really matter, and adds to the thread. Such necros are perfectly valid, but mostly necros are not valid.

[rasterscan]

2 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

...  Occasionally, someone does a search, finds an old thread that applies, perhaps doesn't notice how long it's been since the thread was last posted to but that doesn't really matter, and adds to the thread. Such necros are perfectly valid ...

That's what I was trying to spit out thanks bro

[Phil Deakins]

Yw