Old WIP threads

[ciborium]

I'm just making a small suggestion to help clean up the WIP boards.

Is there any way to automatically lock all the WIP threads that are say, six monts or a year old.  I keep seeing four or five locked threads on the first page because someone dug up an old thread.  This would at least eliminate the obviously abandoned games from being dug up by someone.  Or would this cause Darth Mandarb's PM box to be inundated with "Unlock My Thread" requests?

One more small question:  If I find an old thread in the tech forums that is related to my question, but does not fully answer it; do I dig up the old thread or do I create a new one?

[m0ds]

Well one minute we're asked to preserve bandwidth and the next we're asked to eat away at it So for the tech forum, I suggest you dig it (the old thread) up and try and gain a solution through it. But yeah, in the GiP forum its likely to be locked.

[Pumaman]

Yeah, it might be worth automatically locking threads in the GiP forum if they're not posted in for 6 months or so; in the rare event that someone resumes work on their game, they could PM the mods to get it unlocked.

[Scorpiorus]

One more small question:  If I find an old thread in the tech forums that is related to my question, but does not fully answer it; do I dig up the old thread or do I create a new one?

I see where you are coming from, and I think it depends...

If you have the very same problem as the original poster described but yet have any difficulties making it work in a way others proposed then digging up the old thread is the way to go, as m0ds suggested. Just make sure to mention in your post that it's now bumped to the top.

On the other hand, if your problem only relates to that one but it's not quite the same, a better idea may be to start a new topic and describe your problem there with providing the links to the other relevant thread(s) that you've found searching the forums.

[Darth Mandarb]

What??  And deprive me of the [evil] pleasure I get from locking threads and chastising those that do the digging up?!!?!

Kidding.

I suggested something like this awhile back ... I don't think the thread should be locked.  I think it should be "suspended".  After 90 days of inactivity, the only person that can post to the thread would be the author of it.  Should somebody else try to reply it would say "thread has been inactive for over 90 days, reply not possible, PM the author if you want information about this thread"

Something like that.

I think this could go for every board ... not just the GiP.  I also don't think the reply button should be removed because if it is then we'd get a new thread every week "Why can't I reply to this thread??"

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Is there any way to automatically lock all the WIP threads that are say, six monts or a year old.  I keep seeing four or five locked threads on the first page because someone dug up an old thread.

I also suggested something like this that could kick in after the normal length (is it 2 months now for a thread to lapse?).  I see no negatives either, since the original poster can easily pm Darth and say 'please unlock this thread because I have updates'. 

[Snarky]

I think this could go for every board ... not just the GiP.

I think on some of the other boards there could well be good reasons to revive an old thread, though. The GTD threads, for instance. Or support threads if you are asking a similar question. Or any thread in the Hints forum (where you could make a case that general posters shouldn't be allowed to start NEW threads, but only post in ones that already exist). Or anything in Gen-Gen. So while I think it would be fine for GIP, I don't think it should be applied too every board.

[ciborium]

The way I see it, if a thread hasn't been posted in for six months, then the project probably has been abandoned.  There's no sense having someone post a "When's this coming out?" reply on a two year old thread, especially when it only takes two seconds to find out that the original poster hasn't made ANY posts for six months.  Every time I check it for updates to the games I'm interested, there are two more dug up threads on the front page.  If its not on at least the second page, let it die until the developer wants to update it.

I haven't made a WIP thread because I don't want to babysit the thread for two years.  When I have a working demo and the end appears in sight, then I'll post and babysit it for two to six months.

EDIT:  I agree that the hints thread should only be started by mods.  If there is a game in the database there should only be one hint thread for it.

[Pumaman]

The forum software does give you a warning if you try to reply to a thread that hasn't been posted in for 120 days; in theory this should be enough to stop people. Perhaps the warning message needs to be more strongly worded?

[scotch]

Explaining the official policy on posting in old threads there would be worth it I think, it's impossible to guess... it's one of the areas that we're not even sure of ourselves sometimes. Obviously bumping up a 2 year old game with no new information isn't a good thing, but there are many cases when bumping an old thread might be better than making a new one, especially in the tech forums I think.

I'm not sure how to word the policy myself.

[Darth Mandarb]

Coming from [a lot of] experience in moderating the GiP board ... the 120 day warning is completely pointless.  Almost nobody reads them (or the rules) anyway.  For an example of what I mean just take a peak in the GiP board just about any day   And even if they do read the warning, they [most probably] won't care anyway, they'll post 'cause it's what they want to do.

It would be, to my way of thinking, better to simply make it impossible to reply to an old[er] thread unless you're the one that started it.  Only if this is possible of course

I don't mind it keepin' on as it works now.  It's really not a problem for me to moderate it as is.  I rather like locking threads

[Nikolas]

Well, the warning (I checked it today), does work, but people with few posts, tend to ignore this as they're not used to the red. If the warning was bigger, better, like a new window or something where you had to click [ok] or something, then it could possibly work better...

[Darth Mandarb]

If the ability to post is still there, people will ignore the warning and post their message regardless how big, red, bold, and/or threatening the warning is.

[MrColossal]

Make all posts in threads older than a certain number of months automagically PM the creator instead of posting new unless you check a box?

Or just lock them with a new post saying why it was locked and how to get it unlocked.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The forum software does give you a warning if you try to reply to a thread that hasn't been posted in for 120 days; in theory this should be enough to stop people. Perhaps the warning message needs to be more strongly worded?

In theory, yes, but in practice...Well, you can see for yourself.  It's like someone posts in an old GiP thread at least once a week.  Perhaps if it required them to click a check box below the message (not near the area where they type so they actually have to do something) would help, but I think just auto-locking the thread would save everyone hassle.  It's trivial for the thread starter to pm darth and get it unlocked, really.

Or what we could do is when the thread auto-locks have it send a pm to the author with a link that will auto-unlock their thread so a moderator isn't necessary.  Could also send them a message when the thread is in danger of being locked one week in advance to give them a chance to update.  There are a lot of things we could do to streamline the process if someone wants to script it (and if this BB can handle it).

[EagerMind]

I think just auto-locking the thread would save everyone hassle.  It's trivial for the thread starter to pm darth and get it unlocked, really.

Knowing how people are at reading instructions and following rules, my guess is you'd start getting duplicate threads by people coming back and finding their original threads locked (not to mention additional threads asking why their old thread was locked). I don't know, in practice this might be a very low number - it might be worth someone looking at how many threads that haven't been touched over a certain period of time are ever resurrected by the developer.

After 90 days of inactivity, the only person that can post to the thread would be the author of it.

Seems ideal, if possible.