"From my understanding, the reason they’re closed after 3 months is to prompt users to start new threads instead of continuing to revisit the same old topics over and over." @Caroline
Sometimes people visit old threads because the information is still helpful. And if something related comes up…it’s nice when a person can go to a current thread with the new question. Sometimes there is a good measure of continuity by allowing a thread to remain open. When people are forced to start new threads:
1. those less experienced then have to bounce back and forth from the closed thread that might hold a lot of good info and the new thread that now might have differing opinions, differing arguments, or even explainations
2. there is always the occasional self-important know-it-all that will simply slam the link to an old closed thread into the new thread, curtly telling the “newby” to go read it
3. there tends to be multiple closed threads - some of which, if old enough, a new person doesn’t know exist - all on the same topic. If a person finds all those closed thread, perhaps they will eventually find the answers they seek…but if the miss one or two, they may miss something that could have helped.
"I assume this is to keep content from getting stale or off-topic (as often happens.) Especially, for example, if a product or hardware changes and the answer or solution has changed from the original thread." @Caroline
I’ve often seen people told their question or comments were off-topic…of course I don’t know how this forum handles such situations. I am a moderator of a forum, and when I run across a post that is too far off topic, I have the capability to “split” the off-topic post from the thread, and set it up as a completely new thread. Perhaps this would be helpful if you have that capability here. Likewise, I can also take a newly created thread, and merge it with an on-going thread on the same topic. The merged material is placed in an order as if it had been a part of it’s new location all along. I can then leave a link so that the merged content can be found. That link automatically expires after 30 days.
I would think that if a new post is related, whether something has changed or not, there is useful history, and could possibly cause a better understanding of the situation all the way around.
JM2C