Closing old Off-topic threads

[cpratt]

More than a couple of people here were bothered old posts coming being revived. The team (jmiller specifically) has installed a method of closing posts older than 30 days if they are known to be off-topic. This is better than the old way we did it, which was to delete posts older than a certain date. This way, if people do want to refer back to an old OT post, they still can (if they are members), but they can't revive the topic. This doesn't fix the issue some had that OT is done in other forums beyond Tales. When people do that, there is nothing to indicate that they posted off-topic, so as yet, we can't close those automatically.

This also has nothing to do with on-topic post revival. In that case, for example, the 2007 post that almost answers a newcomer's question but they need more info, can still be revived to flesh the answer out more completely than it might have been the first time. The other condition where that has important side effects, is the revival of an old post that was never answered or answered incorrectly. In this case, it may not be a newcomer, but a regular YTer trying to clean up older answers. The reason this is very important, is that people using the forum as members are the tip of the iceberg. People who are not members continuously ask the search engines questions and any of the technical tractor posts we've made in the past are what they get for answers. If those aren't valid, it's great that a member has gone back and corrected the issue for them. People using the search engines to ask tractor questions sometimes don't really want to be members of a forum (in my experience, some would be too embarrassed to ask a question publicly), they just need a quick answer for their project. The forums serve a lot more people than actually join and post, and all of your answers from the past are what is helping them.

 

[DoubleO7]

The team (jmiller specifically) has installed a method of closing posts older than 30 days if they are known to be off-topic.

What is that method and is it/has it been implemented?

 

[used red MN]

More than a couple of people here were bothered old posts coming being revived. The team (jmiller specifically) has installed a method of closing posts older than 30 days if they are known to be off-topic. This is better than the old way we did it, which was to delete posts older than a certain date. This way, if people do want to refer back to an old OT post, they still can (if they are members), but they can't revive the topic. This doesn't fix the issue some had that OT is done in other forums beyond Tales. When people do that, there is nothing to indicate that they posted off-topic, so as yet, we can't close those automatically.

This also has nothing to do with on-topic post revival. In that case, for example, the 2007 post that almost answers a newcomer's question but they need more info, can still be revived to flesh the answer out more completely than it might have been the first time. The other condition where that has important side effects, is the revival of an old post that was never answered or answered incorrectly. In this case, it may not be a newcomer, but a regular YTer trying to clean up older answers. The reason this is very important, is that people using the forum as members are the tip of the iceberg. People who are not members continuously ask the search engines questions and any of the technical tractor posts we've made in the past are what they get for answers. If those aren't valid, it's great that a member has gone back and corrected the issue for them. People using the search engines to ask tractor questions sometimes don't really want to be members of a forum (in my experience, some would be too embarrassed to ask a question publicly), they just need a quick answer for their project. The forums serve a lot more people than actually join and post, and all of your answers from the past are what is helping them.

Has any consideration been give to my suggestion of adding a message to inform a poster that the thread is older and that they may get better responses from starting a new thread of their own. See link. Similar threads post.

 

[Fixingfarmer]

Thank you for some explanation! I suppose we will watch more carefully the suggested threads down below. It caught me a couple times right off the bat me not paying attention but now it seems to be only when someone else opens it and it appears in new posts that it trips me up. Even if it was on topic if the thread paused it likely means an answer was satisfactory then. And between the other 2 suggested ones it often it got covered. I don’t know how much we want to go back and change what worked that could also trip someone up especially as some of the people who were originally operating these are no longer among us. I’d love to see the old posts from them but I’d also kinda like them locked because someone younger like me could reply with what worked for me instead of how it was done then. Both might be valuable info but I feel like would be better separate. And maybe you are already doing this at a certain point and I don’t know it I just don’t feel the need for someone like me who got on a couple years ago changing a post from 2007

 

[cpratt]

What is that method and is it/has it been implemented?

He put in a what is called a mod that goes through a forum looking for posts more than x days old and closes them. I think we are set to do this 30 days after the last post to a thread.

 

[cpratt]

Has any consideration been give to my suggestion of adding a message to inform a poster that the thread is older and that they may get better responses from starting a new thread of their own. See link. Similar threads post.

Yes. We've not started any new tasks on the forums other than the forum filter persistence (which I have done and awaiting testing). All the work right now is bringing over old posts pre-2007, articles, and the photo gallery. We have lots of issues unrelated to the actual forums. We are keeping a list though.

 

[DoubleO7]

He put in a what is called a mod that goes through a forum looking for posts more than x days old and closes them. I think we are set to do this 30 days after the last post to a thread.

So is the determination made by AI ? Looking in all categories?

 

[cpratt]

So is the determination made by AI ? Looking in all categories?

No, no AI involved. It is just set to look at specific forums and close threads older than a specified date. Right now, this only applies to Tales because it is for off-topic, and there is logic for the wrath people show over old off-topic threads. Technically, the other forums are on-topic whether people use them for that or not.

 

[DoubleO7]

Before the changeover, threads in Tales appeared to disappear after about 14 days.Even if they were still active.
Seems old polls remained forever.

So now Tales threads will be closed 30 days after the last post. But remain to be read forever?

And if a post is made in a thread every 30 days, it will never be closed?

 

[cpratt]

In tales, it was originally 3 days, but we changed that over time. Clearing out by date was time-consuming on the classic view side.

Yes, we are leaving tales threads to be available forever, but locked. There is obviously little value in keeping them given most of it is intentionally temporal chitchat, but it also doesn't hurt anything. They do need to be pulled out of "Similar Threads" and searches, but that's pretty easy and probably will be done if it hasn't already. Initially I set up Tales to be non-searchable but I think we changed that after installation, it also may have been changed back after that though. I'll check.

I believe it's true that if a post is made within the 30 days, it defeats the lock. This is valuable, since otherwise, it would not permit an ongoing thread. Ongoing threads are very useful in other forum communities (but not in YT since it's never been possible). Why start "What did you have for breakfast" over and over again like happens now. Actually, it could be on-topic too "What I did with my Ford N today" or even more important, someone starting their own restoration thread to show progress, which could run for many months. But Tales may have some use for that once people get over the limitation that a thread is a 3 day thing. Sadly, those who take advantage of the First message filter change I'm making will never see those threads off-topic or on-topic.

The polls issue was that Modern View, where they were created, treated polls differently that threads/posts and they never got removed. I never realized it until those polls came through on my importing stuff to the new system. I tried to get rid of them as they were all from 2007 or so and hopefully none remain on here.

 

[Rich'sToys]

I noticed the obituary thread in Tractor talk that someone was fussing about has been locked down, as is the thread in this forum that talked about it.
I guess my thought is that it's never too late to express sympathies to someone for their loss. If someone hasn't been on the forum for a while and just finds out about it now, they should be allowed to respond. You can debate whether it's off topic or not, but no reason to lock it down.

IMHO, the only reason to lock down a thread would be if it violates forum rules, or gets mean-spirited, etc. But not just because it's old.

 

[DoubleO7]

I noticed the obituary thread in Tractor talk that someone was fussing about has been locked down, as is the thread in this forum that talked about it.
I guess my thought is that it's never too late to express sympathies to someone for their loss. If someone hasn't been on the forum for a while and just finds out about it now, they should be allowed to respond. You can debate whether it's off topic or not, but no reason to lock it down.

IMHO, the only reason to lock down a thread would be if it violates forum rules, or gets mean-spirited, etc. But not just because it's old.

A counter view...
We buried my Dad on Thursday.
If I had posted such as a thread, I would not want it brought to the forefront after a few days. Let alone several months or years in the future.

 

[neverfear]

I noticed the obituary thread in Tractor talk that someone was fussing about has been locked down, as is the thread in this forum that talked about it.
I guess my thought is that it's never too late to express sympathies to someone for their loss. If someone hasn't been on the forum for a while and just finds out about it now, they should be allowed to respond. You can debate whether it's off topic or not, but no reason to lock it down.

IMHO, the only reason to lock down a thread would be if it violates forum rules, or gets mean-spirited, etc. But not just because it's old.

No one is "fussing". It was a legitimate question. The OP hasn't been on this site under that name in years. So what is the point of dredging it back up?
If it was a technical post about a piece of equipment I could maybe see it's value as adding more information, but it wasn't.
Glad it was locked.

 

[bmaverick]

I strongly disagree with the 30-day minimum. It would make people posting a repair blog thread or restoration blog thread to go elsewhere on other tractor forums and leave here. There is so much vital information posted like this for tractors on the web. Just because 30-days goes by, a person has to create a new thread? I would NOT stay here then.

Plus, some questions are asked, somewhat answered and the person comes back like 6 months later with info of how the problem was solved. Most other forums close a thread after 1-year. 30-days is very un-realistic.

 

[DoubleO7]

I strongly disagree with the 30-day minimum.

The 30 day min. lockdown is currently only for threads in the off topic category called Tractor Tales.

 

[cpratt]

I strongly disagree with the 30-day minimum. It would make people posting a repair blog thread or restoration blog thread to go elsewhere on other tractor forums and leave here. There is so much vital information posted like this for tractors on the web. Just because 30-days goes by, a person has to create a new thread? I would NOT stay here then.

Plus, some questions are asked, somewhat answered and the person comes back like 6 months later with info of how the problem was solved. Most other forums close a thread after 1-year. 30-days is very un-realistic.

As DoubleO7 said, this is all about OT. We have a problem with a few people who always post OT in on-topic forums and have made that a habit for many years. We can't identify those OT posts to close them and get rid of them. There are ways for the future, but they are not implemented. For the future, probably moving those posts where they belong will take care of the problem ongoing.

We are still going to have many years of old OT posts that are going to pop back up as people discover and reply to them. I suppose one at a time, that problem may work itself out, but we are talking 1000s and 1000s of posts sitting there like time bombs.

We also have some gray area technical stuff that is technically off-topic. Like if someone searches something about a problem with their truck, they may run across a thread here about their model and their problem. These are technical but also OT. That person popping in here may register and ask further questions on the topic which will propagate the problem. The solution isn't as cut and dry as just moving it, since there is no place to move it to that is totally accurate. With that example, maybe Tractor Transporting, but not really. This also exists in places like Paint and Bodywork where someone may have posted something about drywall work and painting in the past.

The history is we had no ability to move posts in our old software, so posts not violating the basic rules, remained, even if they were off-topic.

Your example about the person coming back 6 months later is good, and I would add to that, that now the capability is there when someone starts a rebuild or restoration to start their own thread to document the process they went through with it. Closing that sort of post would be wrong. A thorough restoration could take two years and progress might not be made for 2 months sometimes, so no new post would go in. Such threads are of incalculable value to others. Some people at YT do not have any concept of an on-going thread because it was never possible on our old software so they are having difficulty understanding it is a feature. It's culture shock that a thread could remain, and of course, OT threads shouldn't remain. I think we muffed it a bit by not starting from the get-go with a plan to deal with old OT, such that the technical threads remaining wouldn't have raised such a confusion.

 

[Rich'sToys]

A counter view...
We buried my Dad on Thursday.
If I had posted such as a thread, I would not want it brought to the forefront after a few days. Let alone several months or years in the future.

I'm sorry for your loss. Please accept our deepest sympathies.

I normally don't post stuff like that here either, as I prefer to keep those things private. But for those that do, I have to assume it's because they appreciate the support and encouragement of others. I'm thinking they might find comfort in the fact that someone cared enough to express their concern, even after a prolonged period.

Just my thoughts, for whatever they're worth. I still see no reason to lock down a thread just because it's old.

 

[Rich'sToys]

As far as moving off-topic threads--one solution to that might be to have a few more moderators, each in charge of certain forums. These people would have the authority to move threads to a different forum if they are not on topic. Another forum I visit does this. And when a thread is moved, the title still appears in the original location. But when you click on it, it tells you that the thread has been moved, and provides a link to the new location.

More moderators would help to spread the workload on a forum as large as this. Way too much work here for one person.

 

[used red MN]

Rich, another “tractor forum” (by the same name) I am on does this. There is far less posting there. The problem is there are a lot of “finger pointers” here that like to question unusual happenings after the fact. I think it also works better there because of “less heritage” there. If something is questioned there the mods say “that is what we do here” and move on. It is add supported so I think that puts a different spin on moderator response as well.

 

[cpratt]

Yes, I'm talking about issues that make the assumption that has to happen. We aren't quite ready yet, we still are in the process of bringing over everything else from the old site and that will occupy us for at least a few weeks.