Except that that’s not really how it works. I run into a problem, I come here and do a search. I find a topic dealing with the same problem, and I apply what I learn there to my situation - maybe it didn’t work, maybe it worked but I had to do something else, maybe I found a new way to solve it or uncovered new clues that may help someone else. The thing is, I’m in the middle of writing code, probably on a deadline. Where I might dash off a new contribution to the topic I’m currently in, it’s very unlikely that I will stop what I’m doing and start a whole new thread “Hey people, remember that time 3 years ago when Bill couldn’t get such-and-such to work? Well I found a fix!”, linking back to the original thread. Not generally gonna happen. Even more common are general tips and comments on something someone says in a thread. Useful tidbits for future seekers, but I’m not going to start a new thread for such, and people would probably be annoyed if I did. Closing topics stifles the organic growth of the discussion.
I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong here, it’s not that simple. I’m just giving the rationale behind why the system was implemented here and why it’s implemented in other Q&A-type forum communities and offering suggestions that do help in these situations.
I agree so much. And I’d say that’s a common human behaviour.
But it seems the mess is the preferred way…
I’m one of the ones who agreed with the idea of locking old threads. The reason was that like many others, I get frustrated when I see what appears to be a new thread looking for an answer to a problem, and I spend a lot of time reading the posts only to find that it’s 8 years old and the question was answered years ago.
I will say that 6 months is probably a bit too soon to lock a thread. I would go for at least a year, so that we’re still discussing the same major release of Xojo rather than one that was released on punched cards in the 1960’s.
Another alternative is not to lock the thread at all, but somehow make it obviously clear that it’s an old thread: Change the background to look like ancient yellowed papyrus, and change the font to Eqyptian hieroglyphics.
What makes you assume it’s a new thread?
Well, when I read a thread from a search results list, I first scroll down to the end of the thread to see how it ended (Does it have a solution at all? Does the solution look suitable for the current version? (in doubt, just try)), or I see the “
Solution” mark (the green obvious one).
It can fairly be 8 years old and still working.
The forum software presents it this way. I don’t like how it does it. Please refer to the last paragraph of my last post to see how I would prefer to see it.
Which is:
What would “old” be?
Things that were removed from the language in 2012 would be old in 2021, but deprecated things in 2012, still working now (especially when there’s no replacement) would not.
More than a year or two.
Although it may have seemed in jest, I was quite serious about the idea of marking old threads as obviously OLD.
My issue on this is that some of these so-called “old” topics are actually still relevant today, especially considering changes that have been made in code. It would be nice to allow a running conversation on the same topic over the years to see how the solutions, if any, have evolved.
I do not want to search and find multiple closed posts for the same topic(s) and then have to start a 2021 post. I would think that disabling auto-close would result in less data overhead for the forum system, as people would not have to start a whole new thread for a query on a topic that was addressed in 2015 or whatever.
Just my twopence.
As people are continuing to receive unread notifications when topics are auto-closed, auto-closing for new topics has been disabled. Thanks everyone for providing your feedback to help improve the forum experience.
I rarely use Search results. I’m talking about the Suggested Topics, which appears from time to time. These have the dates in barely visible text, and in an ambiguous form. Such a topic might have a date of Jan 17. Is that 17th Jan this year (in which case the topic is current) or is that Jan 2017 (in which case the topic is quite likely NOT current).
The dates were changed to display YYYY a while back, so they should show the full year when applicable. Previously the distinction was Jan '19 (for Jan 2019) and Jan 19 which I agree is way too subtle. If you are still seeing this let me know and I’ll see what can be done.
I’ll keep my eyes peeled. 
Maybe you should check the settings on your monitor or star using some of the accesibility features in your OS to have a good contrast for you.
That form deppends of the context of the post in the thread, If there is no year on there, is from the current year. But, if you need to se a full Date Time stamp, you can put your cursor over the date to see a tooltip with it. Or even click it and see the date time in the pop up window.
There is two different problems:
a. the date displayed as xx d or whatever… instead of a real date; YYYY-MM-DD
b. The quality of the discussions.
The good entries are hidden inside a flow of other entries.
What is missing, IMHO, is someone who would investigate all entries, test and extract the information, modify the text and code to create a good record and save it; indexed so people can get them easily / faster and know the contents is acurate and working.
I call that “a knowledge base“.
Unfortunately…
What was the name of the knowledge library in Star Trek ?
Ha, I never use “Suggested Topics” (not even sure if I’ve ever seen it, and if so I’ve ignored it). I either come here to visit (read: kill time) and see what’s been going on lately, or I come to search for help on a specific topic.
OTOH, I tend to see them, think one looks interesting, and dive in before checking the date properly. Bad habit.
It ought to be added to the item’s documentations page, really, under Notes.
My bad habit is: if one replies to a very old post, I don’t look at the dates any longer but trust that it is a current topic. But bad habits are there to self-improve. I was in favour of the closing, but I have to admit that those turn out to be right who had concerns. It is probably better to see postings where one is giving the hint that the original post is 10 years old, than anything else.