Community Chat

[Cakers3]

Responding to an old thread f rom 2010 takes a lot of reading.  It isn't just new posters who pull them up.  I don't get the time invested going so far back but however one spends her time is on her.   It seems a waste to me but *shrug*.

We go around with this every so often-and every so often @dooBdoo  explains why it happens and then life goes on.

Until the next time.

[Lindsays Grandma]

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@dooBdoo wrote:

            This is a recurring topic.   QVC opted for what appears to be the cheapest pre-packaged forum platform offered by the Lithium web hosting service.    They seem to offer no customization, so what we have is what we have.

            The migration to the new software, in June 2015, appeared to completely delete all threads started before 2010...  and stripped the oldest remaining threads of all replies and left the "stem" of the original post...  and allowed other old threads (using some arbitrary date) to remain intact with responses (but subject to deletion if we violate standards and bump them).

            (By the way, it's standard practice for any forum or chat site to prohibit bumping old threads, and just about all moderated forums include this in their terms of use -- regardless of personal opinions, thread bumping is pretty much universally deemed to be inconsiderate.)

            It would take unreasonable time and effort for someone to manually locate and delete the old ones and to keep up with doing so as time passes and as other threads become "too old." 

            However, a simple, basic "programming 101" code could easily loop through threads and automatically and quickly lock the ones with no activity (the last post date) after a predetermined date.

            I've spent my life working in IT and I've written this kind of simple code -- it's elementary and if QVC wanted to add this it could be done in a nanosecond.   

            After initially running it, this could be scheduled as a maintenance program to run periodically, probably once a week, with no human intervention needed to continue to loop thrrough and lock threads once their most recent post became older than he specified age.   It's a standard, established practice most well-managed sites tend to employ.

            Not only would it help avoid the confusion with people bumping ancient threads, it would even save the moderators time since thread bumping would be resolved automatically in the background.    Keeping the older threads available isn't the cause of the constant website problems...  those are caused by poor design and maintenance, lack of interest in fixing issues such as database degradation, and the evidence of using duct tape and superglue to try and bandage the site as it limps along.

            This isn't rocket science.   But it's been suggested time and time again and nothing has been done before, so I have no expectation that anything will be done now.

            I think older threads should be allowed to remain but should be closed to comments after a certain time limit.    That would permit us to use them as references but avoid violating the standards which prohibit bumping old threads.

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As you, a number of posters suggested when threads are old they should be closed to comments, it would be interesting to take a survey as to how old a thread should be when that occurs.  Just curious.

[Lindsays Grandma]

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@Desertdi wrote:

For reference

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Exactly, that works for me.

[Lindsays Grandma]

Lately I noticed some older threads were brought up and posters were responding to them.  Personally I see nothing wrong with that.  Many times I would find myself thinking of a particular subject matter, and remembering I saw it here, I would bring the thread up to peruse it for information. 

As far as new posters bringing up old threads, there is a date on each one, not hard to figure out it isn't current.  I say leave them alone, but that's me giving my opinion.  Be nice. 

[Mj12]

A day or two ago, I saw an old thread (8 year old thread) bumped up by a long time poster.  I kept thinking, how did she even find that?

[Cakers3]

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@Mj12 wrote:

A day or two ago, I saw an old thread (8 years old thread) bumped up by a long time poster.  I kept thinking, how did she even find that?

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@Mj12   Exactly what I'm trying to figure out.

Why????????????

Sometimes I think a person is looking for the poster and not the topic.   Often to stir the pot.

[proudlyfromNJ]

I made the mistake of posting on an old thread awhile ago. Right after I posted and looked at what I had written, I realized the post I responded to was old. 

I didn’t bump it up it was just there like a regular up to date post.

So who know what goes on with these forums at times. All I knew was that I never bumped up an old thread, but there it was.

[aroc3435]

@Anonymous032819   Just my opinion:  I agree with @x Hedge and some others that people go searching on some categories quite frequently.  I do it a lot in the recipes forum.

As one example I have a printed copy of March 27, 2012 thread started by nunu4u or nantucket  shore that is titled 

Food Tv Copy Cat Restaurant Recipes that has the recipe for Fettucine Alfredo BUT the reason I cherish it is that it has the commercial size, followed by normal family size recipe for KFC coleslaw.

I don't think it can be located here anymore--just the stub with a link--but not the responses and it is a great recipe, closest to KFC's slaw that I've ever found and I make it all the time.  The Fettucine Alfredo recipe on that old thread is also excellent.

So I hope the older threads don't necessarily vanish since I think some topics are consulted by users more than once.

Most people don't deliberately respond to an old thread but it can happen by accident.  I believe I have done that by not noticing the original posting date, or noticing that one reply before mine was responding to an old thread.

Thanks, all, for listening and have a lovely weekend.

[missy1]

I like to look up old topics, if there isn't something current/or talked about. Plus it provides a history of posting,

[Allegheny]

It doesn't bother me one bit because it doesn't happen that often.  

Usually when they try and tweek the forum something else goes wrong, so I say just let it be.