We’ve had a few instances of spammers dredging up old topics from the depths of yesteryear to comment on, in part because community-initiated topics NEVER close of their own accord. In addition, I shudder at the thought of a troublemaker “necroposting” by replying to years-old topics and creating a mod and community mess in the process.
To help combat this mode of attack, we’ll be changing topic ageing as follows: All non-boing topics will automatically close after 30 days of inactivity. What this means is, you can go right on discussing topics to your heart’s content, however when there hasn’t been a reply for more than 30 days, the topic will close.This change will also retroactively close any topics without replies in the last 30 days.
I expect this to affect nearly no-one, but in the event there was some old topic you wanted to continue, simply start a new topic from the last comment of the closed thread. Easy peasy.
Thanks - feel free to use the rest of this topic to send me totalitarian unchecked power gifs or something.
Eh, when the conversation’s over, it’s over. Thirty days without response is a decent indicator of that (or general lack of community interest). Seems sensible to me.
I’d go 60 days, but nothing would stop me from just starting a new topic if I wanted to ask after a point or opinion from a closed thread, because it would be a new conversation at that point anyhow.
Oh, and maybe lounge posts shouldn’t have that time limit. They should be open 24/7/365 like all proper lounges.
I guess I see some of these as conversations that get revived from time to time, and the nature of the lounginess makes that nice to keep those it in one place. Just my 2c. Thanks!
Sure, and I appreciate your comment about “lounginess”. However, I dug through topics to see how many were reposted to after a month. There are some, but very few, and those that do seem to usually end up with an extra post here or there. While I’d never suggest single posts aren’t important, I wonder what might have been if the poster had, instead, replied to that topic, if closed, in a new topic? perhaps it could have spurred a whole new discussion.
which I won’t have bookmarked, won’t receive notifications on, and won’t know about unless I happen to catch it either the first time I visit https://bbs.boingboing.net/new on the day the spin-off thread is posted, or if I catch it getting bumped on the home page.
you have had “a few instances of spammers dredging up old topics from the depths of yesteryear to comment on.” I’ve had a few instances of old threads I like getting resurrected by users posting awesome content, which I know about only because I see it in my notifications.
here is an example of a popular user-created thread that would have been deleted (I believe several-times-over) already:
The Danger Danger thread has had huge lulls in it, too. I believe some have been over 30 days, but haven’t sorted thru it.
Would it be possible to add a new type of notification to the followers of a closed thread that indicates a new topic has been created from the last comment of that thread?
Just trying to cover all the bases here. I get that your job is to eliminate spammers creating havoc, but the “set-and-forget” nature of the community-created threads has paid dividends to me before.
This is gonna make it awkward for the Dead Pool thread. Unless we get at least one celeb death a month.
I mean, it’s almost designed to lurk around not being posted to unless something happens. Can I get an exemption for that or can we have some sort of keep-alive-reminder thing ?
ETA: Suggestion - If the Original Post is wikified, could that be an indicator for not triggering the auto-close?
So, yes - we can definitely exempt specific topics. I expect it to be a small number of them, though (which is a good thing).
If we see a particular topic being repeatedly closed and forked off, we can act then as well, too.
@noahdjango As for notifications on new topics, that may already happen for watchers (because the system opens a note. I’ll confirm with the @discourse folk.
Please exempt MMXVII - The Dead Pool Thnx!
I mean, I’d love to be able to guarantee a death every 30 days, but the police might get a teensy bit suspicious.
Nah, I was quite serious There may be a few outlining topics (as mentioned), but the vast, vast majority of topics peter out after a month of inactivity. The great thing is, Discourse lets us make exceptions and change things up as needed. So, yes, I really do expect the impact to be minimal, or else I wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place.
