When does a thread become stale?

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

Threads become stale at different times depending on the topic.  A railway accident thread typically comes back to life about a year after the accident when the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) report is issued and that is quite right.  Other threads are very stale after a couple of weeks. 

[grahame]

Threads become stale at different times depending on the topic.  A railway accident thread typically comes back to life about a year after the accident when the RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) report is issued and that is quite right.  Other threads are very stale after a couple of weeks. 

Difficult, isn't it 

Conclusion

* Threads remain open and available to post in ad infinitum - NO CHANGE
* "Warning - nothing here for over 120 days. Consider new thread" for old threads - NO CHANGE
* "This will be the first post in this topic for 20 days" (JUST AN INFORMATION MESSAGE) for threads over a fortnight old.

If I get screams of horror at the last element, I can take it back out ...

[Robin Summerhill]

Not a scream of horror, but I wonder what the point of your proposed new warning is. Unless posting to a relatively quiet sub heading, any thread that has not had a recent post added to it will be quite a way down the page if not on a subsequent page. It should be blatantly obvious to anyone who adds a further post to the thread that it will be the first one for some time.

I am glad that you have already decided not to lock old threads, because you never know when it might need to be resurrected. I have a completely off-topic example to illustrate the point:

A couple of months ago I was idly browsing the internet to see if a classic car restorer was still in business, when I chanced upon the forum for a classic car club that I not only once belonged to, but was one of their Regional Reps for 10 years and their national magazine editor for two years. My idle-browsing internet search not only led me to their forum, but also a topic from 2006 in which I was mentioned ? this was in relation to my putting a Perkins 3-litre diesel engine into a Rover P5B, and the correspondent (who had had a ride in it) described the result as ?awful.?

As my regular readers on this forum will probably deduce, I felt the need to put my side of the story 

I promptly joined that forum and posted, entirely with the intention of putting my side of the story, so to speak. And as I said, that thread had not had a post added since 2006!

Subsequent posts on the thread suggest it was well-received!

In the unlikely event that anyone on here is remotely interested, here is the thread (you don?t have to join to read the posts ? my responses are on page 2):

https://roverp5.proboards.com/thread/2010/deisel-conversion-p5b

[grahame]

Robin, thanks for your strong support and example for keeping threads open for an unlimited period. Always been 'policy' here, totally agree with it, not changing ... and the root of the nightmare of stepping up to the current version of the SMF^▸ (Simple Machines Forum - The software we use on this site) (Simple Machines forum) software.

The statement of a thread being stale after a couple of weeks is informational, and not a warning; it becomes a warning at 120 days.  Beyond that point, the word "warning" is added, the colour changes from blue to red, and the suggestion of a new thread is added.   For sure, if you've scrolled down and found a thread you'll likely know anyway.  But if you have followed a link from another thread, from away from the forum, from a search engine, from the latest posts of a quieter member, or are on a pinned thread you may not realise the age.

As I write this, I am actually tempted - very temped to change the "over 120 days" message to reflect the actual time period ... not to say "120 days" but perhaps "6 months" or "3 years" ... thoughts??.  As you think, please remember, no way am I suggesting that we close threads.