Bumping old threads.

If there's a "policy" that we should not bump old threads, then why are we able to do it? If the moderators don't want threads older than, say, 10 days, to be bumped... Why is the thread still available for posting?

It seems borderline rude to yell at people for bumping threads when the threads are right there and open for posting.

Not sure. Can this be automated by the board?

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Originally Posted by Bubba

Not sure. Can this be automated by the board?

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Seems like the kind of feature that probably already exists... "Close thread after X days of no activity"

I'm not sure about vBulletin, but from my experience as administrator at some IPB boards, they allowed configuration to automatically close threads after an N number of days of inactivity. If I recall the details, however, inactivity referred to day without any views rather than days without any new posts. I could be mistaken on the details though and I have no idea if vBulletin has the same option.

We used it once but ultimately found that the number of complaints from topic starters PMing us asking "WHY WAS MY TOPIC CLOSED!?!" (despite the fact that the rule was posted in red and in bold in every single "Read this before posting" sticky on the forum) was too overwhelming and removed it.

That said... now that I'm thinking back, I believe the feature might have been a third-party hack rather than an official feature of IPB.

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Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

We used it once but ultimately found that the number of complaints from topic starters PMing us asking "WHY WAS MY TOPIC CLOSED!?!" (despite the fact that the rule was posted in red and in bold in every single "Read this before posting" sticky on the forum) was too overwhelming and removed it.

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Back in my days of admining a board (too long ago to bother mentioning), one thing I discovered is that although people whine whenever you moderate them with automated policies, they whine even WORSE when you do it by hand.

At least with software, there is no room to argue that somebody was being unfair. The same program makes the same decision every time, regardless of who you are.

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Originally Posted by brewbuck

Back in my days of admining a board (too long ago to bother mentioning), one thing I discovered is that although people whine whenever you moderate them with automated policies, they whine even WORSE when you do it by hand.

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I would say that'd be true if we actually bothered to manually close every single thread after 10 days of inactivity. However, we didn't and the complaints were significantly less (actually near non-existent on that particular issue). This is due to the fact that people tend to believe that their topic was closed due to their own fault, especially when they don't see any agitating replies. So what you'd get is hundreds of PMs from topic-starters of threads that were never going to be bumped in the first place asking what they did that got it closed because generally nobody looks at the way a topic is evolving more than the person who started it.

What's the hype against bumping old threads anyway? Who cares?

I always notice this paradox - people advise you to use search to find similar threads so you wouldn't make a new one, but you can't post in them because of the bumping thing and you still have to make a new thread. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

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Originally Posted by maxorator

I always notice this paradox - people advise you to use search to find similar threads so you wouldn't make a new one, but you can't post in them because of the bumping thing and you still have to make a new thread.

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The idea is that if you found your answer then you don't need to start a new thread in the first place. If you have not found your answer then you should start a new thread since whatever thread you post in is unlikely to be relevant anyway, or if it is relevant, then whatever answers are given to your question would then be found by a future search on the same topic.

Along those lines, I would tolerate a situation where someone digs up an old thread and corrects a serious mistake in the given solution.

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Originally Posted by laserlight

Along those lines, I would tolerate a situation where someone digs up an old thread and corrects a serious mistake in the given solution.

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I don't like the idea of automatically closing threads, for the same reason. Additionally, not everyone may have enough free time and/or constant access to the web; in a thread, I'd rather see an elaborate posting every two weeks than some guy constantly posting without thinking in 5 minute intervals. Besides, bumping old threads doesn't seem to be a big issue anyway. If we'd really stick to the forum guidelines, we could immediately answer every second thread with "use the fine search function".

Greets,
Philip

ditto ditto ditto

I think old threads should be left open. No one will get killed.

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Originally Posted by brewbuck

Back in my days of admining a board (too long ago to bother mentioning), one thing I discovered is that although people whine whenever you moderate them with automated policies, they whine even WORSE when you do it by hand.

At least with software, there is no room to argue that somebody was being unfair. The same program makes the same decision every time, regardless of who you are.

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A rule of 90 days with no posts would eliminate 99% of the problem bumps and you should probably just ban anyone that whines about a thread that old getting closed.

I prefer leaving threads open so you can post "continued in another thread" posts.