Should "zombie threads" be retired?

pony4us

So often someone responds to a thread that is 2 or 5 or ten or more years old. I know on some sites there is a time limit before stopping new posts, like if there has been no activity for a year there is a message that new posts are not accepted and to start a new thread. I'm not talking about the important info in the stickies, they would remain as is, but I think an expiration date would reduce some of the clutter.
The threads don't go away, but cannot be resurrected to the top. I think a year is a good time to give a discussion a chance to survive. As I said, they are not deleted but to repond to someone who posted in ten years ago is silly, and face it most people don't bother to look at the date of the original post.

AnnPT77

As long as they didn't go away completely (could still be found via search, for example), it might be good if they could be closed to new replies after a long time period. If someone really, really wants to engage with an old thread, they could still start a new thread and link to the old thread, but comment on the new one.

I don't really mind that people give advice to folks who aren't here anymore, but some of the very old threads are just chock full of outdated or otherwise really inaccurate, misleading information.

kshama2001

I use to moderate on another forum where old threads were locked and posters were encouraged to start a new thread and link to the old thread.

SafariGalNYC

💫 Agree with the MFP’ers posts above. ☝🏻

Yes. It would be beneficial to have zombie threads to be locked.

They are great to read for insight but many newbies are generally responding to an OP who posted in 2012 and the new user doesn’t get any real engagement which can be frustrating.

Also- for threads that are 10+ years old… some of the conversation is just out of date and a sticker or lock marking it as old news would be beneficial.

I’m honestly a bit deflated re upgrades to the forums.. there is a lot of ideas thrown around that long time users suggest that seem like a waste of time because I don’t see tweaks being made to the user friendliness of the system.

Are any of the suggestions from the threads incorporated? (I could very well be missing them.)

I think it would possibly boost engagement to encourage new threads.

My 2 €