Why Are Old Threads Unlocked?

Hello @Scooby_Doo

@Szaal pretty much nailed the situation here. Handling the threads on a case-by-case basis, allows us to close any older threads (such as the 2014 thread you cite) as they are revived.

@Szaal and other Leaders also have the ability to close these revived threads; they too should close any that need closing

For discussion on old threads, let me refer you to what @Gower, @rinari and I said in this thread, a related topic which provides context of when to post in old threads or in new threads:

I also moved your thread to the Meta topic and changed your title to better reflect the content of the thread.

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Ok thx so were supposed to flag old topics? And if so won’t it be hard for you mods to close? (I’m going to guess around 300 old topics)

No; just let sleeping threads lay.

If someone revives an old thread, let it be and Leaders or Moderators will shut it down.

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Ok thx for the info

So posting on old WiPs = bad.
Posting on old… anything else = good.

Is this more or less correct?

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Correct, except…

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That one seems more like common sense than anything else, although I suppose it’s subjective.

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So quick observation/question: over the last few days I’ve been seeing a lot of threads in the… top section? Recent area? The ones you see first, where the newest addition is from several years ago. Scrolling down to the bottom reveals that they are indeed locked. I chuckled a little because I’m assuming that the influx of old threads is you guys cracking down on the dinosaurs of yesteryear following the creation of this thread. But I guess my question is, is that supposed to happen? If a thread is locked, is it supposed to move to the top? Because that seems somewhat counterproductive.

If you’re locking a an old WiP or an otherwise irrelevant thread, doesn’t it moving to the top make it… relevant again?

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Unfortunately the “most active” feature of the Discourse software includes our activity as well.

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Is there any sort of mod tool that allows any thread to be closed instantly if no comments where posted in at least a year instead of doing on a thread by thread basis

That “Timer tool” is in place for new threads. It was not available for the older threads.

Unfortunately, there are people that try to post in threads, just before the timers expire… spamming threads that should close on their own but because of their intervention do not close properly.

Edit:

It is o.k. for now. Usually once people learn the forum rules, everyone cooperates pretty well together to make this community a good place.

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Ok is there any way to mass close threads for example threads older than 5 years (i know it’s available on discord via a bot but I’m not sure about this website)

Okay just trying to think of a way for it to be easier on you mods i know it can get a little rough around here at times

I don’t really get why locking a thread counts as ‘activity’, but since it does, is there a way to ‘hide’ a thread somehow?

I know gower has hid a topic of mine so i think it’s possible
But it’s called unlisting

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If that’s the case it’d seem like the boring slog of digging through old threads and locking them would be more effective if it turned into a two step process, rather than a one step (based on my limited knowledge). Lock then Unlist. Problem solved, in theory.

Problem with that approach is for example certain facts about a game could be in a thread but if it’s unlisted a person could not see it unless that person is a mod

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I suppose that’s true, but it seems like the ones they’re even bothering with are the ones that are well and truly dead or otherwise completely irrelevant. I could be wrong, of course. One of them was a WiP whose last post was in 2015 though, so I think that counts as irrelevant.

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You don’t want to hide threads as sometimes authors come back to them and then can’t find them again. There have been cases where old games have been worked on at later dates.

There’s no reason to lock old game threads that haven’t been resurected by someone other than their author. Not sure why this is an issue?

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I suppose that’s true, plus if people want to replay them they wouldn’t be able to find them.

…an issue? I merely brought up that old threads were being moved to top after being locked for being unused for so long, thus drawing attention to them. It’s not a huge problem by any means, it just seems counterproductive as per the reason behind creation of this thread.

I’m also curious as to how all of this works, thus I bring things like this up and discuss them from time to time.

Not sure why that’s happening. Should only be being locked if someone resurrects them as otherwise they just RIP, but maybe one of the mods was bored.

When drop box stopped working, a lot of people got upset they couldn’t replay their fav WIPs anymore. Best just to leave them be rather than hide them IMO.