What would make you want to lock up your old threads? Is there a reason you will want to do that on your forum? Is it because of the information on the thread becoming old or what?
What's your view on locking old threads?
- Thread starter Henrywrites
- Start date
I try to leave them open. But repeat threads should be merged and locked. However, when I did that on another forum we just ignored it if it had been a long time and necroposting would close the older one anyways.
If they have no further need, best to lock them up and move on.
I agree that similar topics should be merged for the growth of the forum.
Many forums don't like necroposting (bumping/posting in very old topics, ranging from a month to several years), so sometimes staff may opt to configure their forums to automatically lock, or even delete (the term for this is 'Pruning', and it's not used exclusively for topics) topics once a certain amount of time passes since it was posted!
I think old threads related to topics like very old forum contests should be locked because the contest is over.
They should be left open because new members can also take part in them and find some thread that's interesting to them immediately and enjoy the discussion instead of only being limited to new threads which will only be discussing current stuff.
If they’re no longer relevant yes, although any old threads that can still produce useful content nowadays I’m more than happy to keep open and have people reply to them.
When it comes to things such as locking threads, I tend to only lock threads if they get out of hand and locking them is the best option to prevent issues or if something is no longer relevant to the forum or even discussion.
I have no problem at all with necroposting. I rather see new life be brought into threads than multiple ones created. If it’s old enough, newer members may not have seen it so there have been times a member randomly posted in an older thread & the topic just took off! If it's locked, people wouldn't have a chance to reply to it.
Have the discussion on the old threads been exhausted? If there's anything left to be discussed on the thread, it can stay open as long the forum is active. Even if it's 30 years, if there's a relevant discussion to be held on it, any member is free to bump it up.