FAO: Forum moderators

Instead of telling members a thread is 4 years old (for example) and that the original poster hasn't logged in since X number of years, therefore not to expect them to reply.. Why not just lock all threads which are over 6 months or a year old.

That way you don't need to keep repeating yourselves when a new member (usually) bumps up a very old topic. It just doesn't make sense, to keep telling members not to bump up old threads or not to wait for a reply, when all you mods need to do is to lock all old threads, to solve the problem.

This will also keep the main page clear of old threads and should encourage members to start new threads with their questions.

Just a common sense suggestion, feel free to ignore it or act upon it, up to you.

Well that would be far more time consuming than commenting as we do wouldn't it. There certainly isn't an 'army of moderators' to do this. At most there are 5 active mods and 2/3 online at any one time.

CR001 wrote:Well that would be far more time consuming than commenting as we do wouldn't it.

Not at all.. You should have the option to mass lock threads all in one go. If you don't, then a super moderator or the administrator will definitely have the option to do it.

The main page should be populated with only new threads, not cluttered with old threads, where mods are saying "this is an old thread etc…"

Not as simple as that unfortunately. Suggest ignore the threads then where we comment as such but most new posts in old threads are removed/split to a their own topic anyway.

Old threads only appear when a member posts in them. There is no 'super moderator' and this isn't within the role of the board administrator. Can you imagine how many old threads a search would throw up and the time that would take? You'll just have to put up with reading a comment from mods now and then about out-of-date information. After all, there really aren't that many in a day.,,

CR001 wrote:Not as simple as that unfortunately. Suggest ignore the threads then where we comment as such but most new posts in old threads are removed/split to a their own topic anyway.

Either you don't have the option available to you or you're unaware of it or this forum is out of date and needs to be updated. Because the option I have mentioned is standard on most, if not all other forum softwares and it is very simple to use.

Having old threads cluttering the main pages, doesn't bother me one bit. My suggestion was for the forum itself and for you moderators.

Casa wrote:Old threads only appear when a member posts in them. There is no 'super moderator' and this isn't within the role of the board administrator. Can you imagine how many old threads a search would throw up and the time that would take? You'll just have to put up with reading a comment from mods now and then about out-of-date information. After all, there really aren't that many in a day.,,

No I can't imagine it because I know how the function works, takes a few clicks and job done.

Anyways, as I mentioned, it doesn't bother me at all. Carry on as things are.

I believe that's best. As you've said, it doesn't bother you and we haven't received any other objections.

I believe it is possible for threads to have an expiry date, after which they lock. I'd never really considered it before. If for example, a thread remains inactive for x number of months it would lock. Think it's an additional code (computer code) that's required to do that. Maybe it's worth considering?

The issue would be if the OP returned to update their thread (which actually happened today from 2015), they would have to start a fresh one if the original had been locked.

Casa wrote:The issue would be if the OP returned to update their thread (which actually happened today from 2015), they would have to start a fresh one if the original had been locked.

Agree, there have been a few recently. It would be the case especially for a thread which went to long running appeal etc. and the OP wanted to update.

I hesitate to enter this discussion as the moderators have broadly argued against this suggestion.

However, I believe that the OP was motivated by a wish to help the moderators, so that the moderators did not need to keep an eye out for zombie threads being resurrected years after they were last updated. And I agree with his suggestion.

Technical aspects
I did some quick research online, as I am sure that other forums (discussing any topic under the sun) have pretty much the same issue. I believe that these forums are run on the PhpBB platform and found these threads online that contain some modifiable code that the admins can use.

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... 1&start=15

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... #p10895205

Moderating aspects
I take onboard CR001's and Casa's arguments about OPs wishing to update their old threads after a long time with the status of their legal cases or long running appeals.

But anecdotally, I would say that 8 out of 10 cases that are added to after 6 months to a year are by a person other than the OP, who has a similar (sometimes very tenuously so) case to the OP. In most such cases, the moderators have had to detach that post to a new thread.

I suggest that the system work in reverse. All threads should lock automatically after six months of the last post (so it is important to understand the code updates suggested above). There can be a link/button there for the OP to request the moderators to unlock the thread or they can post the request to unlock the thread in the "Comments about discussion boards" forum, as they currently do to change the username or delete accounts.

That way, people can still view old threads without accidentally reviving them.

Related suggestion
On that point, I also suggest that threads older than two years in the UK Immigration forums (both Tier and non-Tier) carry a health warning that the law has likely changed since then and to post a new thread confirming the law rather than assuming that it has remained the same. This would be particularly useful for people who find the forums off an external search engine.

CR001 wrote:

Casa wrote:The issue would be if the OP returned to update their thread (which actually happened today from 2015), they would have to start a fresh one if the original had been locked.

Agree, there have been a few recently. It would be the case especially for a thread which went to long running appeal etc. and the OP wanted to update.

Another example.

We expect users to continue in their topic, so auto locking them may be inconsistent with this policy and counterproductive.

The process for Long residence immigrants may be at least 10 years.