deleating old threads.

Just to be clear if I read the latest moderators note corectly they are saying all threads older than 3 years are going to be deleated. Not locked. Deleated.

I don't belive anyone asked for that inspite of what the note says about listening to feedback. I can only assume it has nothing to do with feedback and more to do with reducing load on the servers.

I think a lot of people probably missed this detail in the note so it was worth mentioning.

  • Reading through anything old can be intuitive. The past holds many interesting things, things we can learn from. This is why we look back, to educate ourselves, and remember the people and things that have passed. It would be a shame to remove the old posts and those who made them and contributed. Before signing up I lurked, and I checked many of the old posts and people's profiles. It gave me a feel of the forum and was one of the reasons why I joined. Seems a good place, and a good bunch of like-minded souls, I hope to join the flock and perhaps, one day, one of my own posts will be looked back on and help a newbie decide to join.

    Hi future people! Join this site...

    I'll leave cookies...! CookieCookieCookie

  • The thing that brought me here in the first place was a google search result which returned a very old thread.

  • Well personally I don't think it's a good idea deleting posts and accounts from a couple of years ago as the posts and accounts may be beneficial at some point in the future. A thread I started 2 yrs ago was rediscovered by a bot over Xmas LOL and a member "mentioned" me and I got the notification for it and then remembered the forum and here I am again with that same account that's been left dormant the last 2 yrs. If the deletion thing happens then in future people like me might not be able to return which would be a pity as they might want to use their original account and access the old threads. Just because a thread is older doesn't mean it isn't useful or relative.

    Worth taking into account @moderators. If your system had already been in place I wouldn't be back on the forum today and would therefore be missing out... I don't want that for other members.

  • It may rented server space issues we don't know about as members. Where or how big a bight of that server our forum and this website take up may also be factors? I hope admin does not have to sacrifice those old posts but I also would like to see the forum continue.  

  • My friend had a good saying

    "say it, forget it, write it regret it" !

  • If you e-mail the Community Manager, you can request the deletion of old posts. All you need to do is provide them with the URL of each post.

    This is something I did earlier this year, as I had a whole batch that I wanted removing.

  • Thanks for re-educating me on that.

  • Not old ones you can't! And posts.

  • True.....but you can edit the words in your OP.....but I think the title remains.

  • I wondered this too. I also think the OP should have the option to be able to delete what they have started. I have some old threads which, although they have "documented" the transition between wondering, knowing and general wittering on, I would rather they didn't exist! Once you have a reply you cannot delete it.

  • I assume this is going to be a one off exercise, to reduce the data that needs to be transferred to the new forum?

    I certainly hope it is not the intention to automatically delete threads that reach three years old on an ongoing basis.

  • Number,

    I agree,  it would be a great loss.

    Ben

  • Just to be clear there are PHPBB3 forums much busier than this and much older that have archived posts going all the way back to the mid-00s.

  • It’s not space in the conventional sense of that much I’m reasonably sure. All the text on this forum would comfortably fit on one of my 2 TB external hard drives probably wouldn’t even fill it up a quarter of the way.

    It might be an issue with inefficient searching. If the website is having to search through   a lot of data it doesn’t really need to in order to display things it could slow things down and use up a lot of processor power unnecessarily. But the logical solution to that is just to have better code. 

  • PLEASE DON'T DELETE THE OLD THREADS.....UNLESS YOU REALLY NEED TO, FOR SPACE REASONS.

    I say this, for two reasons;

    1.  When I first came to this forum, I spent months and months reading old and very old threads that were answering my questions perfectly.  There is a lot of wisdom in a lot of the old threads that is still as current today as it was when first written.

    2.  It is (for me) very comforting to see the same cycle of questions and process of "awakening" into the autistic reality/acceptance - repeated over-and-over by the various cohorts who inhabit this place at various points along the timeline continuum.  The fact that this is not a "brand new shiny experience" that I feel - but a well worn and predictable path - is comforting.

    Lock them if you must.....but utter eradication seems excessive to me.

  • I think started

  • Some of the older posts can be as relevant now as they were when they were created however many years ago, so it would be sad if they were deleted.

    However, what I would be in favour of is the accounts of spam bots being automatically closed when the moderators step in and remove the sneaky spam links from the forums.

  • That's not a glitch. They made multipul copies of the same post. one for each sub forum

  • Does everyone get these multiple identical posts from the mods.?

  • I'm not clear about this three year rule.  Does the three years refer to when the thread started or when it was last replied to?