@jmz: Thanks so much for adding this much needed, new user perspective to this discussion!
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Itās great to hear from an actual newbie in this discussion.
I guess this pretty much endorses @Boxās view that āif it aināt brokeā¦ā and the view expressed more than once that if someone isnāt minded to look for something, they probably wonāt find it however much you flag it up.
I am still quite surprised that people who must know that their English isnāt great should seek to rely on a description of their problem. Itās difficult enough describing some technical problems when you are an English major (guilty!).
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I once suggested a new user search the forum for answers to thier question and my post was flagged. New users donāt flag posts.
Your suggestion was very valuable, not sure why it was flagged, but doesnāt surprise me either because I myself have been a victim of āflaggersā as wellā¦Sad group of people!
Also, I wish that topics did not close after 30 days because lots of topics are still relevant after that period.
Cheers!
This!
I still canāt see any reason whatsoever to close topics. It now gets messy when thereās an update to an old topic (e.g. caused by a software update years later) and you have to start a separate thread on the same topic and suddenly have several nearly identical threads. It would make much more sense to just post the update to the old topic in the same thread as the old topic, e.g. āThis is fixed in version 2019ā.
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Was @mics_54ās post a response to mine? This may be a cross-pond language thing. Over here in the UK, the term āflag it upā simply means make it obvious (as in putting a flag on something to draw attention). It has nothing to do with complaints.
I think he was referring to the flagging feature of the forum software. Click the 3 dots, then click the icon that looks like a flag. Then you can flag it for being inappropriate, off topic, etc.
I also hate the auto-lock feature.
If it is your topic I think you can add new posts, but the thread remains locked to any one elseās new posts. Any user can edit their previous posts.
You can ask an admin to unlock a closed topic if itās not yours. Iāve done it.
I think you can reply to your own topic even if it is locked but not unlock it without certain privileges. Sages can unlock though. Iāve been asked to unlock a few threads for extensions that have gotten updates long after the threads were last active. Whatās ironic is that there are at least two dedicated threads discussing the auto lock feature, of which I know one is locked (thatās why the other was created). By now I would presume both are locked.
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Do topics close after 30 days? I thought at the bottom of each thread it says the topic will close 3 months (~90 days) after the last reply.
Regardless, I agree that closing threads is not exactly a great way to discourage creating duplicate topics. For example, letās say I have a question that is answered by a thread that has been closed but I need clarification on the solution or would like to ask a question about the solution can fit into my application. As a new user I donāt know that the sages can unlock topics (and I canāt easily find anywhere that says they can) so Iāll most likely create a new thread for my question.
Maybe this isnāt a problem and a new topic is necessary (it could generate new discussion), but if new duplicate topics are something we are trying to avoid then I might suggest a āRequest Unlockā button at the bottom of locked topics (although this could create a lot of work for anyone with unlocking privilegesā¦)
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I think that the administrators of our Discourse instance have all topics set to lock after <x> days of inactivity. x=90 for most categories and x=180 for Technical Problems categories.
Perhaps @Caroline can chime in, or tag the administrator who deals with these setting - just so we can know the current state of auto locking.
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