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I have a question about how forums operate. Does anyone know if it is possible and/or painless for a web forum like Punaweb to automatically lock threads after a preset time (maybe 2 years?) so people can read them but no one can come along and resurrect a years old thread?
It seems like there are people who are new to a site who will start cruising through the archives, and just have to drudge up some old thread that maybe even has obsolete information in it, or that had intense arguments and anger in them, and just have to add their comment. What is wrong with just acknowledging to yourself that you missed that conversation, instead of bringing it back up years latter? So is there an easy fix, or is it difficult thing to do.
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
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I agree CS. Sorry about the "mexico problem". Glad someone is paying attention!
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The technique is called necrobumping. It's a trolling technique to disrupt forums and the perpetrator does it to get private chuckles from seeing how many suckers they can pull in that don't pay attention to thread dates. It takes quite a bit of administration to moderate a forum and most forums have many volunteers to do this laborious effort. If you look at the bottom right, the forum software is identified. It gives some idea of the effort that would be needed, and this forum software, while impressive, is very archaic. Automation is kind of funny because without a human writing a bunch of scripts, there is no automation. Bottom line is it would take a lot of coding to selectively close threads, even just simple time-date controls. That means the forum owner has to do it manually, and while the front end looks simple enough, the back end can be extremely obtuse. The problem with volunteers is they have to be given admin access and quite often, these "volunteers" are sleeper hackers, waiting for the right time to inject vulnerabilities or other whack hacks. Rob is also being very open and lenient, even necrobumps fade away after awhile. He also said he is looking at and considering another forum software.
"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*
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It's tricky, because some of the building threads are still really useful even after 5 yrs or so. I think I found my "rock delivery guy" on this message board from a very old thread.
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Locking a thread does not delete it Julie so you still would have found your rock guy...
Nothing left to do but
Smile
Smile
Smile
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It depends on the forum software. Some forums not only lock the threads but move them into a different SQL database. The archived posts are still visible in search results but keeping the active SQL database smaller makes the forum run faster, which is important in very active/large forums. These are all usually admin settings but the default setting is usually to not lock them. Most forums are monetized and more posts=more page views = more clicks = more money. Locking a thread means not adding to it which means another fraction of a penny won't be made.
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This seems like a discussion about solving a problem that, at this point, isn't enough of a problem to worry about.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Posts: 5,640
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Joined: Dec 2008
If it's happening here, I haven't noticed it. Someone on the Politics forum is going back and blanking out their old posts but that's not quite the same thing. (Maybe in light of the Wiener revelations they've decided to cover their tracks?)
