Hi I want to raise a simple question, not that I expect the answer to be particularly simple:
Why are some ancient useless threads still active.
I raise it because I saw in my search yesterday at least one result about Sketchup crashing from 2016…
No-one uses sketchup 2016 as I understand it. Yes I have a copy of 2017 somewhere I keep in case I want to use it, but ‘SU 2016 pro crash’ threads from search results is just bloat filling up search results, on google also importantly. If you dont use google to search for your answers then that’s fine but I and I expect many others do.
( Still getting startup crash after opening 2016 Pro )
I know many other old threads still have value today in 2025, even closed threads, because they hold good information. I have often found myself looking at such threads that hold relevant answers for me, even if they were created many years ago.
As an example to support my question, I see on the right of this dialogue as I type this post there are similar topics that the forum is suggesting I could look at, such as one from 2015 talking about ruby api google groups being redirected to the new forum. This is important so do not to clog up the forum with useless and duplicated threads of course.
All I am asking is can we have a way of voting for a thread to be removed or hidden from search results, for the particular threads such as ones like ‘2016 pro crashes on startup’ that are just bloat. As a suggestion / request, only when such a thread has been voted enough times as utterly irrelevant and useless could it be removed, but it might go a little way toward helping de-clutter search results, bit by bit, and bring about an end to ancient thread results, such as ones that talk about graphics issues from 2014/15 as another example.
It seems the world has become obsessed with collecting and storing useless data and never deleting it anymore. I come from an era where storage was limited and we would actually delete old stuff when its passed its use by date!
I would like to suggest that if there are enough people who think this thread itself is useless and has no place as a relevant topic in the meta thread that it is deleted forever and never comes to light again. How meta is that!