posting to older threads

[doug3030]

Ok, how often have we seen it? A newbie posts a question and gets shot down by someone saying that's been answered before, why did you not do a search before asking? Yep that's a fair call.

But what about if you have done a search and you find nearly all the answers and you still need a bit of clarification/confirmation? the thread is three years old. I know a lot of people who responded to the original thread and respect their opinions and would like to ask them to clarify a couple of things. I know that these people are still active on the forum and would probably receive notification that someone has posted into a thread they are subscribed to.

I draft a reply and try to post it only to be told "You do not have permission to bump threads over 730 days old."

So my options are:

Start a new thread linking it to the old one where most of the relevant discussion took place, but then nobody gets a notification to come and look at this new thread as they would if I was able to resurrect the old thread.

I could PM the people whose opinions I seek, and then I would have to go into a longwinded explanation of why I wa sasking in PM, and at the end of the day the information would not be on the open forum and available to everyone, which is why we have a forum in the first place.

Or start up a new post going into an extremely longwinded discussion of what is already in the post I wanted to respond to, but not referencing the previous post.

I mean, seriously, I can understand that it is not always desirable to dredge up old posts, but sometimes it could be a good option. I mean, 730 days is a pretty arbitrary figure when you are running a forum on a craft that had been practiced for thousands of years. A lot of the material never gets old.

Even the way the information that you cannot post is poorly presented to the user. You click on "reply to post" It lets you draft a reply. But it will not let you post it. You waste time drafting something that is not going to be allowed to be posted. Why not move the filter back a stage and notify you before you get the screen to draft the response?

Now we have all seen incidents when someone has not realized the age of a thread before posting a reply that has no real meaning due to the passage of time, but how about the occasions when it makes sense to revive the old post to save a lot of re-explaining and/or unnecessary referencing?

What about instead of a blanket ban on reviving threads over (an extremely arbitrary figure of) 730 days that when electing to post a response that people are shown a popup or something that advises them of how long the thread has been dormant and asking if they really want to take that action?

Cheers

Doug

[BobL]

What about instead of a blanket ban on reviving threads over (an extremely arbitrary figure of) 730 days that when electing to post a response that people are shown a popup or something that advises them of how long the thread has been dormant and asking if they really want to take that action?

That would be my preferred option.

[doug3030]

no opinions/explanations from mods/admins? I thought it was a pretty reasonable question

[Mobyturns]

Is it possible for the admins to re-activate a previous / older thread?

Some information on posts could be kept current - i.e. safety threads etc.

[ubeaut]

I have turned off the No Bump Old Threads setting for the time being as a trial and if it isn't abused then it may well stay off. This will give those with ongoing projects etc a chance to update them.

Might also help to bring some new blood to the forums, because what they are looking for may well be in an old thread and they just want a bit of extra info etc.

I would not like to see that new blood being spilt due sarcastic or nasty responses by members, which is what often happened in the past and was one of the main reasons why the no posting in old threads was implemented in the first place.

For what it's worth.... We did used to have a pop-up that said "This thread is xxx days old and posting to it may not be relevant any more" or words to that effect, but it didn't make any difference. Also I reckon the "extremely arbitrary" 730 days (2 years) is a pretty fair time in forum time and relevance for a post to left open to bumping or reposting to.

Cheers - Neil