Locking old threads. An idea for site improvement.

[ch88]

A lot of the new posters post messages on old threads. I know I am not supposed to post to old threads, which means I can't reply to the question or I have to answer in an email. Also it is difficult to remember to always check the date on the original post.

Can the old threads get locked after say a year to prevent this from happening? That would be a lot of threads to lock, but it may also make it easier on the moderators so that they don't have to keep saying the same thing over and over again.

[kareng]

11 minutes ago, ch88 said:

A lot of the new posters post messages on old threads. I know I am not supposed to post to old threads, which means I can't reply to the question or I have to answer in an email. Also it is difficult to remember to always check the date on the original post.

Can the old threads get locked after say a year to prevent this from happening? That would be a lot of threads to lock, but it may also make it easier on the moderators so that they don't have to keep saying the same thing over and over again.

If someone bumps a thread up, you can answer them.  I agree that it often gets confusing when people do that.  People start responding to the older posts or get angry when the OP doesn't respond to them.  I have had messages from people giving " helpful" replies to a very old post and they are angry that the OP doesn't respond.  

Often I will split the new post off and make a new topic if they are asking for help.  

[ch88]

32 minutes ago, kareng said:

If someone bumps a thread up, you can answer them.  I agree that it often gets confusing when people do that.  People start responding to the older posts or get angry when the OP doesn't respond to them.  I have had messages from people giving " helpful" replies to a very old post and they are angry that the OP doesn't respond.  

Often I will split the new post off and make a new topic if they are asking for help.  

That makes sense. It does seem common from reading posts on this site, that someone will get confused and respond to ancient questions.  Sometimes a whole bunch of people do. There might be a way to have a pop up message when replying to an old message or something along those lines. 

[kareng]

I am not sure if anything has changed from a few years ago..... but at that time, someone had to go to each topic and lock it.  If  I am rembering  correctly. ?

[Scott Adams]

In general we don't discourage replying to an older post, and do encourage, before you post, searching the board to see if your topic has been covered. You will likely find that it has, and in that case you have a choice to reply to that thread if your question wasn't covered there, or start a new one.

I will see if there are settings that allow the closing of older threads, but it may have to be done manually, and if so...there is no way we could do that.