Old threads

TheZohanS

Would it be a good idea to lock all old threads over 5 years old to preserve the history of Boards?

I ask this because as it stands anyone can post on an old thread and make a mess of it.

Could a system where you have to PM a mod to reopen an older thread under special circumstances be introduced?


Cheers,

TheZohan

Amtmann

Interesting. Certainly some of the motorway construction threads in the Infrastructure and Commuting and Transport forums should be preserved since they provide a very valuable pictorial record of the construction of national infrastructure that will likely be in place for centuries to come. I'd hate to think that boards.ie would ever lose those threads.

Eoin

Only a mod could edit the old posts though, so I don't see how they would be lost by bumping them.

Amtmann

I wonder how secure boards.ie is as an archive though. I mean, for how long will it all last? Will there come a time when someone comes along and says, "right, any threads dating from pre-2005 are being deleted".

sioda

Well if your were to delete pre any date threads it would de value what boards is and upset the post count junkies:P.

But seriously in the same vain that the site doesn't delete accounts as they might take the flow from the threads i take it the same reasoning would be put to threads themsleves

TheZohanS

The point I was making is that there are original threads from the site dating back to the '90s, anyone can come along and make a fresh post on it.

Depending on what forum the thread is in it can end up looking like a dogs dinner with people posting absolute crap in it, the whole tone of the thread can get lost.

It's like finding a 1st edition with someone having drawn smiley faces and "Anto woz ere" on the pages.

Saibh

TheZohan wrote: »

The point I was making is that there are original threads from the site dating back to the '90s, anyone can come along and make a fresh post on it.

Depending on what forum the thread is in it can end up looking like a dogs dinner with people posting absolute crap in it, the whole tone of the thread can get lost.

It's like finding a 1st edition with someone having drawn smiley faces and "Anto woz ere" on the pages.

That happened the other day in After Hours, thread from 1999 (I think). That thread had only 1 post on it before someone posted a new post.

Rabies

Furet wrote: »

I wonder how secure boards.ie is as an archive though. I mean, for how long will it all last? Will there come a time when someone comes along and says, "right, any threads dating from pre-2005 are being deleted".

Over the years Boards has been doing nightly back ups. Down time was for about 20min.
For a few months now its been done on hte fly with no down time.

Everything is saved.

I think there was one crash when some data was lost.

TheZohanS

Saibh wrote: »

That happened the other day in After Hours, thread from 1999 (I think). That thread had only 1 post on it before someone posted a new post.

It did Saibh.

I also dug up an old post myself and posted on it about a month ago, the thread was along the lines of people better start posting on AH or the forum will die. I was expecting some intelligent posts but people just posted nonsense, as in gibberish.

After that I thought it might be an idea to preserve old threads.

Amtmann

I did something about this in the forum I mod.

See here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=62167577&postcount=1

Poor Uncle Tom

Saibh wrote: »

That happened the other day in After Hours, thread from 1999 (I think). That thread had only 1 post on it before someone posted a new post.

I think you are referring to this thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=61770246#post61770246

It was not my intention to destroy any historical threads, or even alter the tone as set in any thread. But in this case I thought I was not doing so as no one had originally posted a response to the opening post.

My apologies if I offended anyone, perhapse the oldest threads should be locked.

Saibh

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

I think you are referring to this thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=61770246#post61770246

It was not my intention to destroy any historical threads, or even alter the tone as set in any thread. But in this case I thought I was not doing so as no one had originally posted a response to the opening post.

My apologies if I offended anyone, perhapse the oldest threads should be locked.

This is the thread I mentioned in my other post which was locked.

DeVore

We are committed to keeping as much online as possible... thats not to say locking them is out of the question but we most certainly wouldnt delete anything... at worst a time might come when there would be an archive of board's older posts which would be read only but we prefer to bring as much of it forward with us as possible.

DeV.

Cloud

Absolutely agree with Tom. No to deleting! Yes to potentially running a query to close threads > 5 years old...

randylonghorn

It would run the query on last post date though, rather than thread start date?

I can think of a few threads still going strong which are close enough to having a start date > 5 years ago, there could well be a couple in other forums which do exceed that limit and are still running ...

DeVore

Credit it us with a little noose

DeV.

javaboy

Cloud wrote: »

Absolutely agree with Tom. No to deleting! Yes to potentially running a query to close threads > 5 years old...

Wouldn't be a good idea in some forums. FaP for instance. Fashion tends to go in cycles. So those old threads* from 5 years ago could suddenly become popular again.



*Pun intended. In fact that's the only reason I posted.

Toto Wolfcastle

javaboy wrote: »

Wouldn't be a good idea in some forums. FaP for instance. Fashion tends to go in cycles. So those old threads* from 5 years ago could suddenly become popular again.



*Pun intended. In fact that's the only reason I posted.

Next time a thread in FAP gets bumped after 5 years, and it happens all the time, I'm sending it to AH for you to play with.

Earthhorse

javaboy wrote: »

Wouldn't be a good idea in some forums. FaP for instance. Fashion tends to go in cycles. So those old threads* from 5 years ago could suddenly become popular again.

janeybabe wrote: »

Next time a thread in FAP gets bumped after 5 years, and it happens all the time, I'm sending it to AH for you to play with.

Stop talking to yourself.

randylonghorn

DeVore wrote: »

Credit it us with a little noose

DeV.

Ummmmm ...

janeybabe wrote: »

Next time a thread in FAP gets bumped after 5 years, and it happens all the time, I'm sending it to AH for you to play with.

You're going to send javaboy a FAP thread and encourage him to play with it?

Sounds just his style!

Beruthiel

Ah Ropie, you rarely see the gathering cards anymore.

DeVore

Its not like we dont make them accessible



DeV.

kevteljeur

What about some form of 'thread entropy'? Where threads get auto-locked after either a certain amount of time (easiest), a certain amount of time set per sub-forum (less easy) or some sort of fiendishly clever forum-use-over-time algorithm (not easy at all). I use something like the first option on Wordpress to prevent zombie post commenting, where someone starts commenting on a post from 3 years ago which they found on Google. It would prevent zombie threads, as much as preserving history.



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Nevyn

RopeDrink you're lovely