Right now topics close after 30 days, Is there any reason this shouldn’t be extending MUCH longer? (A year? More?)
Sometimes I know people will come to a topic which seems to have been resolved (but without the OP clarifying the actual solution) and someone else might have the same issue and like to ask the OP for details… Or sometimes I have come across old posts when I am searching for a solution, and when I do get an updated solution, I wouldn’t mind updating the old topic (since it is getting search traffic).
Agreed. I think we should think of this the other way around: what are the conditions for when we want to close a topic. I think the main reason for closing topics is for people reacting to things that are no longer relevant. But when is a topic no longer relevant…
So I don’t think I wouldn’t mind if we didn’t close topics at all. But there are probably more considerations that I’m missing here. Maybe close only after a while if there is a solution, but don’t close if there is no solution?
Yes, I think it should be extended. I wanted to add a solution to a closed topic only the other day and couldn’t, which is very frustrating. Creating a new topic just to say here’s how you solve this other problem doesn’t sit right.
Over time this will become more of a problem as old topics will rank in SERPs and AI even if there is a newer solution elsewhere on the forum.
This is why GitHub issues live forever and there’s a clear process for linking them.
Someone revived a topic from 11 years ago the other day (from the old forum) and a well meaning person (with their AI assistant..) spent time answering the topic.. The topic was complete drivel.
So.. right now: when a topic gets marked as answered (and only then), it closes after 30 days, think it’s reasonable for most cases, people might come back to change their mind, it didn’t actually work maybe.
There IS official ways to cause a link to appear on closed topic:
As well as linking to any of the comments on the topic will do the same as well.
You all are super helpful power users, I do think we should protect other people from their worst instincts - how often have you seen a comment appear 3 months later going: “I have the same problem” without context.. I have too often.
I agree for the most part what you are saying. However, sometimes someone could also add additional information or new insights that could be relevant. Nobody will see the ‘linked topic’ thing
I’m not sure if this is a big problem or not. The forum is not (yet) that big that we need to police it very strictly. But I don’t have all the answers. Let’s try 60 days and see how it goes.
