Should threads that lie dormant be closed?

Will the software allow a 5 minutes gap between starting new threads?

that may stop a lot of the repeat spam threads.

CrustyRedXpress said:

Yeah, older and less tech savvy people still struggle with capcha...

californiamilleghia said:

Will the software allow a 5 minutes gap between starting new threads?

that may stop a lot of the repeat spam threads.

 

This, but limit it to those under Half-Dork or Reader level?

(500 posts or 100 posts, respectively.)

Would going to a dedicated forum solve these issues? 

Sometimes information/experiences happen later, maybe years. Why limit someone from going back and updating a post?

SPAM is the issue, it happens on most forums. Locking old threads wont fix that. 

I just want the ability to not see post from one user.

adam525i said:

In so that when this thread gets bumped up by a canoe in five years I'll see my post lol.

I just put a repeat reminder in my phone to bump this thread in a year 

I think we need to separate spam types for this discussion. Its a different type of problem with a different solution. 

Canoe peddlers: bump old threads, questionable links.

Mass-thread creating zombies: cover the first page of every section till they are nuked.

The canoe peddlers aren't a huge issue to me.  The thread zombies are.  Accordingly I propose:

No new member can post without an intro post in the intro thread.  Then they can head out into the wilds and post in whatever thread they want.  This gives the members a chance to review the intro thread for a canoe peddler.  Once they've been let loose they can only post new threads in the Newbie Section (yet to be created) until the reach a threshold.  This limits the spambots to one section till they have proven to be people.  Afterwards there can be a semi-regular movement of any decent threads into more appropriate sections. 

Stampie said:

I just want the ability to not see post from one user.

Sorry bud, I've tried to tone it down.

Stampie said:

I just want the ability to not see post from one user.

Me......Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

Stampie said:

I just want the ability to not see post from one user.

Would that be whoever currently has a car for sale?

In reply to Beer Baron :

The struggle is real...

I despise captcha but I get why it's needed. I was paid to write on a site that is no longer around and worked as a moderator a bit. It's a major PITA to have to approve new members and their first posts for x length of time. We had to catch the fake accounts and shut them down, move posts to the correct page, warn people ect. It's very time consuming. At least I was getting paid to do it. 

I would hate to see dormant threads locked. There have been a few times I have researched something here and even for an old post, being able to ask questions is great. 

Just my 2 cents worth.

I like reading the old posts when they come back.

I vote that we leave it alone. If someone wants to comment on an old thread, why is that bad? 

David S. Wallens said:

I vote that we leave it alone. If someone wants to comment on an old thread, why is that bad? 

Absolutely!

A good part of the beauty of any store of knowledge such as this forum, is that one can retrieve data from the past and add to it and update the discussion without losing the history.

Spammers are a different issue and should be dealt with in a different manner.

I just wanted to weigh in in case the insane notion of automatically locking old threads might be gaining any traction.

I received an email a couple days ago about an old thread I'll copy & paste below. It was not sent as a PM but through normal channels. I hadn't posted in the thread since 2018 and the most recent post was 2020. Shows that folks do read old threads and the old threads do keep people returning to the forum. The subject of the email was "Fan from Grassroots".

Married??? DO NOT TRY THIS!!!!!

Dear Mr. Paige:

I cruise through the build forms on Grassroots Motorsports often to pass idle time. I rarely log in but have been a lurker for years.

Today I found your Married???? thread.

It looks like you have no0t posted on the site in a few years, so I went to your Lab 14 site and found this email in the palm tree seeds posting.  I hope I don’t sound like a stalker…. I was just really enjoying your thread and it  j u s t stopped…..

Did COVID Get you?

Did the ex track you down?

Did the stagecoach company finally win?  (Lord, I hope not)

I would very much like you to consider updating the thread. There is so much left unsaid:

Can you cook a meal in the starch-built Kitchen? With your craftiness, you must be a gastro-expert …. proficient at making great meals from found objects…. perhaps such as the iguana you posted a picture of out the front window mid-thread?

Did the rest of the house ever get fixed up?

Did you install the most impressive hidden defense minefield made of free found items to take out future burglars?

Are there a row of bodies buried in the backyard?

Do you still build bikes?

You get the idea…

Written in high hopes you’ll post an update. Thanks!

Y'know, I really wouldn't mind if there was an "entry fee" of $1.00 required on a credit/debit card for your creation of a forum account to prove you're a real person...

My 2 cents. I have only been on this forum for about half a year. Lots of threads have interesting information in them, new or old, and if I spend the time to read a 5 page thread or 105, I usually have a comment to make. I do find it annoying that some threads just die out with no followup resolution or ending.

Edit: What I meant to say at 3:00 am is that even old threads are new ones to me and I think that the spammers are doing me a service by resurrecting them. And that I wish that people wouldn't just leave us hanging by never concluding a thread if there ever was a conclusion. 

I want us to continue to have the ability to revive old threads on serious topics where we tell members like Wally how much we care about them and are rooting for their happiness.

I found this thread valuable 

I think locking old threads is the wrong move. Honestly the hold and post count on new members is a pretty normal thing, and I think it would work well.  

John Welsh said:

I wonder if this old thread from 2013 being revived via spam (since deleted) is what brought this topic up.  

An interesting note as I read over this 1.5 page thread of a trivial nature.  At least 4 posters in that thread have since passed away:
CHW
Doctor Blade
Hal
Curmudgeon

Also wbjones

As for the issue of closing old threads, that would be a terrible overkill solution.

The solution should be something that minimizes the need to track a user's history to minimize the difficulty of programming it and new data storage features needed to make it work. Rate-limiting approaches would be bad in that regard. I think an approval/vetting process for first posts would be a great idea, especially since it could run off the user's post count which is already tracked. Maybe require admin approval for all first posts before they appear. Maybe run your first posts through a search for common spam terms, and if it looks too spammy the account gets locked and posts are held pending approval - the same could be done for first posts on old threads (defined where the last comment was over 1yr old for example).

Dubai call girl posts fill a page. Come back in 15 minutes and they are gone. A zombie thread comes up and someone is chagrined for not seeing the date, but the fresh discussion is still a good discussion.

Both the spam and the zombie are annoyances, but I don't think either one of them is troublesome enough to qualify as a "problem" with the current level of moderation.

As a newer member, zombie canoe threads have given me a lot of great older material to read that I wouldn't have otherwise found. If a thread pops up that I've never seen before and already has a butt-ton of pages then I'll check the date of the second-to-last post, but locking old threads would have kept me from reading so many good threads that I  wouldn't have read otherwise.

johndej said:

I found this thread valuable 

Wow. You weren't kidding about that phone reminder.