Idea: Show old posts with a yellowed/aged background

I agree with freezerman404's approach. Old threads should be locked after a period of time.

What I have noticed about a lot of the old posts popping up again is that someone has found something new that could be important. I would not support locking any posts, but maybe the idea to make them a different color would be worthwhile.

@OcramSagev said:

I'm not a fan of the color-coding idea.

I don't mean just yellow, rather something that looks like an old newspaper, or foxing in an old book.

What I have noticed is when these old threads are brought up it's usually a new member doing searches trying to find answer.

I personally don't mind these old threads. Some are really helpful information.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

great idea! a subtle visual cue for older posts could make it much easier to notice that the content is outdated before replying.

I personally think a year is fine. Three months I would consider way too short. People go on holiday, take a break from the forum etc. Or maybe six months if you want, but I still think a year is about right. That would clearly be a topic that has been discussed and completed.

Ps, I have more or less resolved my edit problem as shown in my other topic, but it is interesting that the edit window is different depending on if you are creating a topic or replying to a topic!

Additionally, some of the associated threads that come at the end of a topic are older ones ie yesterday one was 2 years old.

Is the 1 year based on the OP date or the date of the last post?

If the latter I can imagine some topics staggering along for many years 🙂

If a new topic is started as a continuation of an old one that's locked, it won't be followed by the same users who were following the old one. Some topics that've been idle for a year may still be quite relevant to some people.

I still think it's worthwhile to make it harder to miss that you're reading an old or very old post. Shouldn't have to wait until you try to reply to realize that the little text at the upper right of the posts you're reading says "8y".

I will concede that one year may be too long. I think, instead of going straight down to three months, go down to a year from the current infinity and then if people still feel a year is too long, maybe go down to six months and review. Perhaps it would be more accurate if I said, that a year from the last post on that topic, should be the maximum amount of time a topic should be left open. We can always reduce the time, but let's make one year since last post the maximum? However, I am leaning towards six months as the optimal time period.