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Having noticed yet another thread that was resurrected today after lying in its grave for six years, I was wondering if you had considered a function that would automatically delete threads that had not seen activity in, say, six months, a year, whatever, to save time on the necroing (though I do like using my Thread Resurrection jpg...) and the mod time to go around and lock such threads up? If, for some reason there's a need to keep those threads around, would it be possible to remove them from the Search parameters once they are X weeks/months/years old? This should prevent people from searching for, say, "Why Tau suck" and reviving a thread that's four years and three editions old.

 Psienesis wrote:
Having noticed yet another thread that was resurrected today after lying in its grave for six years, I was wondering if you had considered a function that would automatically delete threads that had not seen activity in, say, six months, a year, whatever, to save time on the necroing (though I do like using my Thread Resurrection jpg...) and the mod time to go around and lock such threads up? If, for some reason there's a need to keep those threads around, would it be possible to remove them from the Search parameters once they are X weeks/months/years old? This should prevent people from searching for, say, "Why Tau suck" and reviving a thread that's four years and three editions old.

It's a good idea in theory but a gakky one in practice.

I'm a member of another forum that deletes old threads and it sucks really bad. There are tons of good threads that deserve to be read or still have relevant information buried in them; deleting them would take all of that away!

No need to delete them.
Just banishlock them when they rear their filthy necrotic phrases, pustulent punctuation and ghoulish grammar.
They'll never come back after that unless a mod can be persuaded to join the dark side and release them from their eternal tomb if they suddenly become relevant again.
It's nice to have archives.

Autolock after a period of time would be better...

Hmn, 6 months? Sure. We'll ignore that I update my years old 40 page long blog threads only every other month.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
No need to delete them.
Just banishlock them when they rear their filthy necrotic phrases, pustulent punctuation and ghoulish grammar.
They'll never come back after that unless a mod can be persuaded to join the dark side and release them from their eternal tomb if they suddenly become relevant again.
It's nice to have archives.

Seeing it from 'this side', I can tell you that it really isn't a big problem.

They crop up very rarely, and when they do, it isn't a big deal to...deal with.

So, having all of these threads still around, searchable and potentially still active is a more than OK trade-off for occasionally having to deal with Threadnomancy Outbreaks!

 Psienesis wrote:
If, for some reason there's a need to keep those threads around, would it be possible to remove them from the Search parameters once they are X weeks/months/years old? .

The reason to keep them around is so that people can still read them.


As Alpharius said, it's not really that big an issue... and in certain parts of the site (like Painting and Modelling) it's perfectly acceptable.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
I'm a member of another forum that deletes old threads and it sucks really bad.

Yes, this has killed my participation on one other forum.

Most of our forums will give you a popup if you necro an old thread warning you about it. A few of the ones with slower traffic will not do so. This is the best happy medium I think.