I've implemented a change that automatically locks threads older than a month so they can't be commented on anymore. I'm doing this due to the kind of replies these threads mostly receive – which are often spam or weirdly off-topic. Opinions welcome...

Hey, you have such a pretty site. Thanks for the information.

> Hey, you have such a pretty site.

Exactly, that kind of spam :D

I was going to request something similar to this (After my embarrassing reply to /pd's 6 month old uncovering of pagetastic) but never got around to it.

Thanks.

<< Exactly, that kind of spam.

So appreciations are now spam.

> So appreciations are now spam.

Yes. They try to look innocent but they are automated nevertheless, and one of the most annoying spam these days. I've blocked everything from "good_design" to "nice_site" and "great_work" etc., in many variations. Often, spelling errors are added or "+" signs instead of spaces to make these harder to catch.

PS: I assume the idea is that the URL field is populated with a spam URL, only that there's no URL field in this forum...

Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't get it. From what I know, most blogs have captchas for comments and/or the URL's are no-followed. So what's the point?

Philipp, work with -30 days autolock. This will certainly catch trollers on old threads. if users want, they could always point to the old thread and open a new one..

"I've implemented a change that automatically locks threads older than a month so they can't be commented on anymore."

Do you mean 1 month without any comments? Or just one month from the start time?

No no, that s/be 1 month from StartDate of thread. Thus the normal life cycle should for any thread is "lived" for one month..!!

I disagree (with /pd, not the general idea) some threads last for longer (and should), like Sam Davyson;s Web Riddle and GMail requests,

maybe it should be locked if there has been no activity for one month then?

Ok I'll conceed the point with the riddle and the DiVinci code game.. but those are the exceptions correct ??

gmail requsts ? not part of of the forum rules :)-

Most threads are not active after about 10 days.. take a look at the forum...even the most hotest or controvisal threads last only for about 1 week of discussions. thats the generic trend...so if extend to 30 days does sound ok...

Splasho, it wouldn't be bad if there were multiple threads for Sam's web riddle. Each time one month was reached and it got locked, someone could start a new thread. That would have the additional benefit of keeping a single thread from becoming excessively large.

But I could see either method (one month from thread start date or one month from last activity) working.

One month is plenty of time to keep a thread unlocked.

If a topic is going to run and run, someone can start a new thread after a month.

<< maybe it should be locked if there has been no activity for one month then? >>

I agree. That's how I think it should work if it doesn't already.

Alternatively, you could use some kind of captcha to unlock an old thread. But that obviously wouldn't stop manually posted spam...

I was figuring if the need arises, I can have a special flag for old threads that prevents them from being locked... e.g. Sam's riddle thread. The current approach is 30 days from the original thread creation date...

Philipp, That sounds very reasonable!!

A flag that can on/off which indicates if the thread needs to locked from the creation date.. I think a lot of us can live with that. Users can always reach you and request you to open a thread if its locked!!

Yeah, a flag'd be fine

Philipp,
   I think that locking can be as bad as good. For example, if there is a thread about a certain problem, and 6 months later an answer arises, someone could use the link to method that /pd and Niraj Sanghvi talked about, but then when someone googles that problem, they find the original thread with no answer. This could really detract from the value of this site in a search.

HOWEVER, I don't present the problem without a solution :o)

Every time someone creates a post, you could scan it for links to other threads, and on the thread linked to, you could place a "Follow up Threads" Section that has a link to the linked from post.

--that may have been confusing wording, but it made sense ;o)