Is there a way for very old topics to be marked with some kind of banner (or even locked)? Something like a floating bright banner that says “You’re browsing a very old thread”.
With Discourse, I’m finding it extremely easy to browse very old topics because of how well it sorts posts. Some of these aren’t immediately noticeable if you’re just browsing threads.
I feel a little stupid because I just flagged one for having a very large user inserted signature and realized afterwards that the post was made 14 years ago.
Okay, so I’ll dig into this further in tomorrow’s “Did you know” but the activity column on the Topic list changes color based on how old the topic is. The lighter the blue (I think), the older the topic (I wrote this incorrectly in another post).
Also, you can click on the Post count to get a view that shows the date of the first post and the date of the last response.
If you go to a Categories page eg. Get Started, and hover over the value in the Activty column you’ll see a tool-tip with the first and last dates.
But yes, it would be nice on the Category Index page somewhere too.
the Discourse devs decided the dates showing in their own columns presented too much visual clutter
I just got a chastising letter from @Mittineague for using a signature…14 YEARS AGO. (Apparently the admins didn’t realize it was an old post either, even though I can clearly see the date).
He subsequently (apparently) went through ALL of my posts from ages ago and removed my all of my signatures…even though I haven’t posted in a couple years, but have rather been a fly on the wall reading posts.
Will you also be doing this for the rest of the users/posts on the Sitepoint forum or does everyone else get to keep theirs??? My understanding was that the old forums were being HTML archived and left to be, maybe I read the email about Discourse wrong?
Just the posts that were not migrated are being HTML archived. Anything that had been viewed within the past five years was migrated over - yes, it’s an aritrary number, but to convert the whole forum over was too onerous - the five years was bad enough…
Chastising? Really, it was likely automated. Feel free to invite myself or @HAWK if you feel it wasn’t appropriate. Also, from what I can tell only 5 of your posts were migrated, only the 1 had a signature. The other 5 show zero signs of being edited. So if you could specify why you believe “ALL” of your posts were edited, I’d appreciate the information.
Lastly, yes, we identified it as a old post well after actions were taken. It was actually flagged by the community, which brought it to our attention. So let’s deem this as part of the learning curve to the new system. Mistakes are going to happen within these first few weeks of using it (things we couldn’t easily test during the time, we staff used the system).
Sorry if you took it as chastising. I meant it more as a friendly suggestion (else I would have issued a Violation instead) to use your Profile for such things.
The vB forums did allow Signatures, but when migrated to here they were not included in the posts. - Discourse has no Signatures. I did not go through your posts and delete signatures,
Only threads that have been viewed in the past 5 years were migrated over. (viewed, not posted in) all others will become static HTML pages. Old links to the ones migrated over will redirect to here.
Signatures will be removed from the posts that aren’t migrated over as well.
I’m merely frustrated and felt singled out for something I didn’t even do, especially coming from a community that I come to for information - not to deal with drama (there’s enough of that in the real world, lol).
The other posts of mine from ages ago also had signatures, and are now gone, which @Mittineague just explained.
So we are on the same page, we are to flag old posts/and or “fake” signatures should we come across them?
No, please, we are busy Archiving long dormant discussions as fast as we can.
We do not believe in issuing Violations for anything that might have happened long ago and got missed by the Moderators at the time.
(though we may edit or even delete some posts)
Ah, okay. We at least we are all on the same page now and the staff has been updated to pay closer attention to the dates. So hopefully we don’t make the same mistake twice!
I actually don’t mind if you do that. We’ll gladly edit them out and archive the topic at the same time. Others may not feel the same, but more eyes searching for these things than just our own can never hurt (in my opinion)!
I’m merely frustrated and felt singled out for something I didn’t even do
You can blame me if you want. I sorted the list wrong and thought it was a new post. I didn’t recognize you so I just flagged the sig thing and afterwards I noticed that it was posted in 2000 and I removed the flag, but @Mittineague was too fast (or it stays in their queue or something, idk).
This is one thing I do not like about the forum as when you can not see the users history it is sometimes harder to make a decision whether to report a post - the first day I reported a member of sitepoint staff!
But as has been said it is all a learning curve for everybody.
I do agree with the devs thinking about the clutter though. Maybe a suggestion would be to set up cut off point as a config setting, so when you reach posts of a certain age, and ones that have had no replies for x days, then you insert a subheading “Old posts…blah”, or a button to load “old” posts?
[quote=“mawburn, post:14, topic:97482”]
I removed the flag, but @Mittineague was too fast
[/quote]You need to be really fast to beat @Mittineague when he’s moderating. (Picture him in tights and a cape and you get the general idea. )
Hey @Isaiah - sorry you feel frustrated, it’s a bit of a learning curve for us.
FWIW the links in sigs are no-follow so the few old ones that exist here are worth nothing, but I’m happy to remove them personally if you want to send them my way as you come across them. We definitely don’t want people to feel singled out here.
)
