Old threads unlocked, implement a autolock feature for thread older than X time - General

With the move from oldpunch to newpunch all old threads are unlocked and some other mods already had to close and ban people for bumping 5+ year old threads. The idea will be to implement a system that archives threads preventing people from bumping these and could use a different icon from the lock one, like a cabinet.

Seems fair enough

i didn't hate how people were allowed to bump old threads on the old site if they had something new to add how about requiring coins (10-50) to resurrect a dead/archived thread there could be an event log event or an alert for mods to confirm it was worth it (you'd get banned or have the thread re-archived if it wasn't)

I think it would be good to just auto-lock threads that have been inactive for X amount of time, preferably a year. This would keep threads about seasonal stuff, like American Football that goes inactive for half the year, unlocked but older threads preventing from necromancy. I feel as if there's new content to add to a thread over a year old, you may as well start a new thread.

What about the drunk Oblivion thread?

what if I need help with something that was old and not discussed for a long time (an old game mod for example)? why make a new thread when i could bump the old one full of useful information?

I opted for a system where after a considerable amount of time, a bump could not just be done by just clicking the reply button, but also a prompt to alert the user if they wish to bump an old thread. This should decrease the chances of a user bumping an outdated thread, but also permits discussion on long-time projects (example; the ShareX thread hasn't had a post in over a year, but it's still not redundant) You can also help advert this from some spambots with some form a human verification (we don't have here captcha yet, up to garry if he wants to use it, and if it ever becomes an issue)

Also wasn't the Drunk Oblivion thread only a handful of posts away from being auto-locked anyway?

Why not allow users to bump old threads, but only if their post is above a certain amount of characters? That way if you're going to bump an old thread, you have to have content to do it with. That or the coin thing seems the best to me. A lot of bumps are perfectly valid in my opinion and wouldn't warrant making a new thread, if for example you were searching for a solution to a problem, found the unsolved thread, and then found a solution yourself, I think it would be valid to bump that thread with the new information to help anyone else who goes searching for that problem.

On the old forums, threads were auto locked at 125 pages.

Maybe the "Bump notification" could have some "Do's and Don'ts" of what is good etiquette for bumping a thread, and instead of costing 10-50 coins like some user suggested above, it could just cost one coin and/or have a warning that redundant bumps will risk you getting a ban.

is it sensible to tax users to do this though? You'll find cases where users would sign up to enter old discussion, and regardless how great their etiquette is, you've already walled them off. And since they're new, they would be unfamiliar with the economy, they'd ask questions about coins, and depending on what the prompt shows, they may assume is as RMT paywall (granted the state of the games industry right now)

If you need to make a post to need something, then I would expect that the old thread won't have your answer, and thus doesn't have 'useful information'. There is no law about making new threads on old topics. I can't think of any instance where someone got banned for making a thread about the same question from a thread made years prior.

I second this idea.

Threads like Unpopular opinions V8 Flat IS NOTHING are well past 125 pages, are still being actively posted in, and aren't locked yet so I assume Newpunch page limit is greater.