Can old threads be automatically closed - please?
Yet again, I found a supposedly revived thread, last used over 2y ago that had been revived by a totally unconnected post.
It would make sense to me to automatically close a thread 12 months after the last posting on it. Interval is subject to debate, of course. The mods should be free to reopen such a thread so that they can post responses like "This has now been fixed".
Apart from the questionable status and relevance of the info in an ancient thread, the fact seems to me that most revivals are on an utterly different topic.
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The best solution would be to figure out and address the underlying cause of the zombification: why do people not use the huge blue "Ask a Question" button at the top right? Why and how do they dig up the ancient thread, and why do they scroll down to the very bottom of it, type into the box that's clearly labeled "Leave a Comment", and then push the button labeled "Post Comment"? The disimprovements to the interface that were applied in April make that second step especially baffling, as the comment box is the same grey as the rest of the page, so it looks inactive/disabled.
(Of course, the result of the use of the correct button exacerbates the greyed-out problem; I'm pretty sure it's the "inactive" appearance of the question box that causes so many people to attempt to squash their entire question into the title, which has a white background and is labeled Question. The Leave a Comment box doesn't have that white-versus-grey contrast; perhaps that's why people don't avoid it quite as actively.)
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why do people not use the huge blue "Ask a Question" button at the top right?
Or the big blue/white ? at the top left? There are 2 in-your-face opportunities to find the correct place to start a new thread, but, instead, the new complaint/question is appended to an ancient and unrelated thread.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi 's instincts to find a root cause are correct. However, when I posted the start of this thread, I did so on my phone where there was no huge blue "Ask a Question" button at the top right.
I went to the "Ask a Question" option under Site Navigation, then had to choose one of 11 sub-groups. Having chosen (say) General Questions, you are then encouraged to complete the Search box, after which you get a drop-down list. There is no "obvious" means to enter your own question, so "obviously" you are meant to choose one of the existing threads in the drop-down list. "Obvious, innit?"
Yes, those are meant to be scare quotes. What I think the designers intend you to do is firstly decide if any of the drop-down list answer your question and if not, click the blue circle carrying a plus-sign, after which there is another pop-up "(?) Ask A Question". Click that and you get to the normal form to Ask A Question. Finally.
So how come the occasional person doesn't click the blue circle carrying a plus sign? I suggest it's because that blue circle is actually a different type of visual element so people don't interpret it as being part of the flow. (I wonder if people using visual assistance even "see" the blue circle plus?)
I would suggest that there needs to be a better clue along the lines of a prompt saying "If none of the above match your problem, then click here to Ask A New Question".
I have no idea how many routes there are to asking a question, but the above is one way that I fear misses the "obvious" big blue button.
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It took me ages to work out how to navigate my way through all that, and in particular to understand that I needed to scroll down and find a plus sign, when I first joined this Community.
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After reading @MandyShaw1 's comment, I had a thought and discovered that the loss of the "huge blue Ask a Question button at the top right" has nothing to do with me using my phone - or at least, not directly. It's all about the width of glass that your browser has access to.
My usual browser's full screen is 1920 pixels wide - I see the huge blue, etc. Logically half that is 960 px - and at that width, I only have the plus-sign on the blue circle. Expanding the half-width, I first get the Quick Links boxes - but the blue-circle plus-sign remains. Expanding a bit more again, I get the restoration of the huge blue etc, instead of the plus-sign. Slightly oddly as the huge blue etc takes up less width on my screen than the Quick Links boxes that appeared previously.
Anyway - this appears to explain why some people can't see the "huge blue Ask a Question button at the top right" - their screen is too narrow.
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So - this leaves my original question - is it possible to have automatic closure of long dormant threads? Is this a Community configuration matter or what?
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In a related issue - if a request for help with an indexing project has had no response in a week, it's too late. Such a post is just taking up space at that point.
Here's one from 2022 that has been revived today:
In general, something with that much age is no longer valid, but this one may be since there are still problems with the viewer/editor.
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