SUGGESTION: Automatically lock dormant threads

[#1]

Probably moaned about this before, but I see quite a lot of this:

That's a thread that's been bumped over seven years after it was raised!

I see two obvious solutions to this:

1. Develop something to automatically lock threads that have been dormant for 'X' amount of days. I could be mistaken but I don't think Lithium offers this functionality out of the box?
2. Implement something to limit the output of search suggestions when posting i.e. only return suggested threads that are newer than 'X' days.

Thoughts?

[#2]

I saw this yesterday

Maybe it should be bigger

[#3]

I'll add my support @bobpullen  I've reported several such incidents to the Mods recently.  Uneccessary work for the Mods + plus confusion to the reader until the date check is made

Option 1 is preferred.

Option 2 could get in the way of legitimate searches for similar historical information?  But if option 1 is operational the data will need to be cut'n'paste to a new post.

[#4]

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@Browni wrote:

I saw this yesterday  [Image cut]

Maybe it should be bigger

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I doubt that would work unless it could be configured to deliver a mild shock via the keyboard for every character entered 

[#5]

Great suggestion and it has my support... only issue is that it's not possible for me to develop something that would automatically lock a thread after a certain amount of time has passed. To lock a thread would require a physical action by a user to do this - and even then.. the user needs to have permission to lock a thread.

Option 2 is also not possible as we have no access to the search results.

I could have the API give me a date of the last reply to a topic and have the editor completely removed from the HTML on the reply page... but this isn't a great solution either.

The only thing I could do is submit an idea to the Lithium ideas board and hope it gets voted enough for consideration.

[#6]

The Lithium ideas board already has this idea which was posted 5 years ago. It has got a lot of votes too but the idea has not been implemented as far as I can see... though it is marked as something for consideration. I have submitted a new idea, referencing the other one, to revive it.

[#7]

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@Browni wrote:

I saw this yesterday

Maybe it should be bigger

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I've just tried starting a reply to an old topic and the screen automatically scrolled to the area to compose the message with the yellow message off the top of the screen so it may be that people are not seeing it. Is the scrolling something you are doing @jaread83? Can you stop it?

[#8]

I hadn't thought of the auto scroll. This is something in the system and I have added a bit more to it to ensure the focus is scrolled to the editor... I may need to change it so that the warning is not obscured.
Thanks for pointing that out @jelv, that's a good point. I will add this to our backlog.

[#9]

Given that even if people do read the message they are inherently lazy could you put a start a new topic (in the current board) link in the message?

[#10]

@jelv is it possible the warning is getting stopped with pop up blocker or  add blocker ?

[#11]

@jaread83I had it at the back of my mind that during the Lithium development we complained that the reply box wasn't in focus and you did something about it.

@rongtw - no it is not blocked, if I scroll back up the screen the warning is there.

[#12]

@jaread83 Could you fix it so that when the warning pops up the scrolling is totally suppressed - i.e. make it more painful to reply to an old topic but not stop it entirely?

[#13]

Sometimes though it must make sense.

You do a search and find your problem or question has already been asked. But no answer is there so you simply ask what happened what was the result.

Or dare I say you find a thread where plusnet has said they are going to do something promise something and.............

But I can't disagree that overall resurrecting threads over a certain age is generally pointless. Maybe as suggested the warning needs to be made more "in your face" unmissable.

[#14]

@Browni, thanks for pointing that out, I'd not realised there was a warning.

@MauriceC wrote:

Option 1 is preferred.

Agreed.

Option 2 could get in the way of legitimate searches for similar historical information?  

Not an issue if the cut off is limited to the new post suggestions. May not catch all instances though.

@jaread83 wrote:
Great suggestion and it has my support... only issue is that it's not possible for me to develop something that would automatically lock a thread after a certain amount of time has passed.

An interesting solution touted here, although it's a bit of a hack  

@jaread83 wrote:
The Lithium ideas board already has this idea which was posted 5 years ago. It has got a lot of votes too but the idea has not been implemented as far as I can see... though it is marked as something for consideration. I have submitted a new idea, referencing the other one, to revive it.

Thanks. Upvoted.

[#15]

As a mod do try to move such posts to their own new thread with a reference to the thread they originally posted in but these do slip through during busy periods.

Would it be possible to have a clickable warning box similar to when clicking on Cancel when replying? Perhaps three options given being:

Return to Board (so they could see if a more recent thread is available)

Start a New Thread (which automatically opens a new thread page perhaps with the title already completed)

Continue

Just a thought.