Closing of threads (and maybe a better solution?)

Hello nullers, Retr1 here. I have a suggestion today for the admins (@pry0cc, @oaktree, @IoTh1nkN0t, @_py, @fraq).

Thread closing

As a matter of fact, our staff team has decided to discourage necrobumping. And rightfully so, don’t get me wrong. However, I believe that closing the specific thread is a wrong approach. What do I mean by this? Well there area couple of disadvantages to this approach.

  • Questions: When one has a question to the poster, he/she has to PM the poster about his article and hope the poster replies. This could be avoided by asking a question in the thread and if the poster doesn’t answer, maybe other people will

  • And IF the poster replies, the poster might need to answer the same question over and over again through PM. This could also be avoided if the question was asked on the post itself: the question would already be answered and a smart individual would get his answer from there.

  • Now on IRC, @fraq suggested one makes another thread about a post while we were discussing this. This looks like a feasible option, but in time the homepage would be swarmed with threads about threads about threads… atleast, that is how i see it.

So what would be the solution?

I think the solution, if it can be applied, is to not close old threads that suddenly become active again. But simply, prevent threads of a specific age to re-appear on the homepage when they get a new comment. This would ensure that only people interested in the subject would be looking at the thread while not bothering anyone else on the homepage.

I hope that my input has been of any use. I already thank the people who read this in advance.

EDIT: poll inserted.

  • YES, we need this system.
  • NO, the current system works fine.

0 voters

6 Likes

I agree this is a good idea, implementing it, however is another story. My proposal is to just make threads close automatically after 30 days. If anybody comments in that window, it’s open and accessible, you can’t necrobump.

If you have a follow up, you can PM the creator directly, ask on IRC, or if it’s significant, make a whole new follow up thread altogether. What do you guys think about that?

The point of my suggestion is that the closing of threads is not a good deal. Discourse mods have the power to unlist threads, can’t this be used & automated to unlist threads from the home page?

1 Like

That sounds like a pretty guerilla way of doing it. Let’s just trial the 30 days thing first, if it causes problems, we can have this conversation again.

1 Like

I feel that 30 days might be a little short. Maybe something like 3 months? I think that by that time most questions that readers might’ve had will already be answered.

EDIT: or 1,5 months after the last reply would also work maybe?

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Boy, people who aren’t in IRC are gonna think you’re schitzo after reading this.

Everyone else: We’re talking about this in IRC. Sorry if you miss context but this discussion is rapidly evolving.

3 Likes

I have noticed the issue of closing of threads… it’ll be way easier to just remove from home screen. This way if anyone is like me and get bored, search up topics when need be. I mean, google is helpful for questions but I prefer this community than google and ugly posts that are in the search engine results. Maybe edit the wiki more? Displaying the helpful posts along with resources.

Just a couple of suggestions.

I hope my input is helpful but I did miss the discussion in the IRC.

~Cheers!

@fraq has confirmed to me on IRC that our opinion on this has been noted and they will make a system with this thread in their head. compromises will be made because it is impossible to please everyone, but i hope they’ll make a decision to please the majority of the community, which i assume they will.

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