Auto closing threads

One of the things that I always consider, yet have yet to implement, is the automatic closing of threads after a specified amount fo time has passed either from the first post or the last. I was curious how others handle it. Is closing a thread a good idea? Or might these threads spark further interest at some point and the act of closing it will lose good posts.

 

Makes sense. I have no experience running a large forum which is probably why, to me, it seemed that maybe not closing threads would be a good idea. What you say makes perfect sense though. Thanks.

 

I allow gravedigging of older topics, so I wouldn't use this feature. I actually prefer if a user replies to an older topic rather than making a new thread/post about the same thing that the first thread is about.

 

You allow it and thats what you have just done :-)

 

I am for keeping threads open for the most part, because having participation in any form is much better than discouraging it. But doesn't it sort of depend on the subject matter of the forum and also how the person replies? I mean, a forum about an ever changing and evolving technology would probably be better off having new threads started, instead of someone coming into an old thread and saying, "did you ever get this solved?". It would be much better, when that person would ask about their particular problem in a probably completely new scenario with the new technology in a new thread, instead of thinking the old unsolved problem is the same as theirs and hoping someone actually found the solution to that older problem.

This issue also arises partially, because Google and Co. don't sort results by age of content, so someone finds a result matching their issue and blindly posts in an age old thread asking for further help. It isn't really a good scenario for the user or the forum.

How about a function that simply warns the user bumping an age old thread about their action and their chances of getting a better answer and serving the community better, when they start a completely new thread, with the question, Would you like to start a new thread? Yes / No.

Scott

 

I only closed topics when there was no other choise, what most moderators and admins seem to forget is that they can remove posts in a topic, split them off a topic, move topics etc etc. But it becomes more and more the sport to close topics if they need to do any moderating. Look at the vBulletin site post a help topic in the feedback section and the topic will be closed in many cases withe the last post reminding the person that the feedback section is not the help section. vBulletin has just like any other software the option to move the post its more friendly to the person that made the topic and it saves another post youll need to check. vBulletin site is one of the examples mosts sites are doing it like this.

 

I auto close all threads after a year of no posts. No reason not to. They can always make a new thread and link to the old one if they need to. I believe the question was about auto closing right? I rarely ever close a thread for any reason other than it died and nobody posted for a year. Though if someone bumps a thread that is old but less than a year and doesn't add anything useful to the topic I will delete their post and warn them.

 

So back at my PC so i can explain more.

The reason why we did not close topics is easy. If you close topics at random with no reason behind it at all people will wonder why its closed and start reading closed topics. By making sure closed topics are only used in cases where no other action would make a difference people will skip those topics. Also by making sure that topics that contained information and so on not to close people knew that there was no relevant information in closed topics. As you make clear to people that its not allowed to respond in topics older then 5 to 6 months without specific reason topics will be down the page.

Its also educating moderators not to close topics but to moderate, most forums only seem to have access to the close button while there are more buttons they can press like move, split or even delete a post if needed. So by educating people closing topics should be an exception on a forum. The users also knew that questioning moderator action on the forum was not done this was done by PM or Email if the person was not happy after that he could send word to one of the Administrators after that the decision was final.

 

I allow the same thing on my community. I like when old discussions are revived with good content.

 

I don't close old threads. I prefer to let them open so if someone posts a message in the thread, there are good chances that a member who didn't visit the forum for a while receives a notification and will eventually visit the forum again.