Zombie Threads

[AcrobatFly]

I've noticed that 1 or 2 year old threads have been popping up lately. Is there a way you can turn on thread locking for conversations older than 12 months? CG Talk does this and, like GA, CG Talk also uses vBulletin. If you can, that'd be great for the long term. Keep the conversations fresh and relevant.

[dustinbrown]

ZBrush Central does it as well.

[Beartastic]

Awesome idea. Would there be any way you could have it be something you could turn off if you are the OP?

Hopefully nobody goes under on a WIP thread for a year, but it's been known to happen.

[AcrobatFly]

True, but a year is a long time. Regardless if it's the OP's own thread, to me, it'd just make more sense to start a new thread. If you abandoned a thread for a full 12 months, what's the point?

I'm not saying that it's impossible to get back into the flow of a very old conversation, but I can easily imagine a situation where 90% of the people who contributed so much to that thread aren't even GA members anymore. It happens. You'd essentially be starting the thread all over again anyway, but with very old and maybe irrelevant posts as your foundation.

As for whether or not it's possible to implement that level of user-side control.... I have no idea. Possibly. I'm not 100% on the vBulletin specifics. I do know that you can edit and delete your own threads. So, I'd guess that admin would be able give members the ability to close/open their own threads too.

The questions are: Do you think that every member is 100% responsible enough to handle that level or self-moderation? OR... Do you think that that there's the potential for this new power to get abused? Plus, what if the mod/admin closes the thread for issues like flaming or trolling? The mods/admin would have to be given "final say" sort of closure power. (I'm guessing that'd come as part of their user account type.)

Still, I can imagine this all creating a little bit of an unnecessary/imaginary power struggle between n00b/wanabee type OPs and mods.

Personally, I'd just leave it at automatic thread closure after 12 months of inactivity. If the OP really wants the zombie thread resurrected then he or she could always just contact a mod/admin to reopen it. I don't see that being as much of a problem.