Archive?

[Don_Phillips]

Just an idea I had looking at many posts over time.

How about threads "expiring" after an interval of three months since the last posting?  And when I say "expiring" I simply mean the thread gets locked from further updates.

After all -- If no one has contributed a post to a thread in three months what are the chances the original poster has not moved on to other things and still requires assistance?

I think:

1> this would prevent posters from digging up old threads related to their topic and spamming (E.G., @ltheux).

2> occasionally someone searches a topic and accidentally posts to a thread long dead.

3> this would stop piggy backing on other peoples issues.

Personally I find it annoying to see a thread 5 years old (and was solved) brought back by someone who has a related issue.

"Please help me in this thread instead of creating a new post and linking to the old" syndrome.

Just a thought...

[Wolfgang]

There are certainly good arguments supporting and objecting this idea.

In any case, I would consider three months of expiration time way too short. For example, take a bug report. We all know that it may take one or two years to have the bug fixed... I find it useful to have the bug fix information added later on, even if the original post with the bug report is dusted.

[Don_Phillips]

Point taken... I also find these useful.

Of course there could be exceptions put into place to solve such concerns.  Obviously forum moderators could reply to any thread they like with no restrictions.  Perhaps anyone from NI?  Perhaps also the originator of the post?  That way if "so and so from NI" posted a bug report they could update it regardless of time frame or thread lock.

Or perhaps when creating a new thread there is a new toggle button for creating a "thread locking post" or not.  If not it would never expire.

Such rules could be debated until a concensus is reached as long as the original idea is sound.  For now I am happy to simply promote the idea and get people thinking about it...

[crossrulz]

Here's another prime example for your argument:http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Minimum-elapsed-time-resulution/m-p/2312216#M726684

[tst]

While old threads being dredged up irrelevantly is annoying, a considerable portion of the posts to old threads are legitimate posts in those threads. I think the current situation is preferable to one where all threads are automatically locked and even to one where threads are locked only if a check box is checked.

[Darin.K]

What do you want these poor people to do?  Their introduction to the forums is either "Did you even bother to search?" or "Did you even notice that you are replying to a 3 year old thread?"  One of those two crowds (and some people are probably in both ) is going to have to back off.

The search is borderline useless IMO.  You can't really require somebody to search for a related post before asking a question and then turn around and complain about the age of the post. 

The resurrection of very old posts is fairly uncommon, and I actually appreciate that the poster followed the rules (assuming it really is related).  Small price to pay to reduce the number of non-searchers.  And if I were to set a limit, it would probably be closer to three years than three months.