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Why are threads locked so soon now?
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AreYouHuman View Drop Down
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    Posted: September 23 2018 at 22:18
 

I just did a search for a thread I last posted to over a year ago, only to find it locked.  Now it looks like all topics last posted to five or six months ago are all locked.  Why was this necessary?  I’ve looked for any possible thread that discussed this (apparent) new policy, and I can’t even find any acknowledgement of it at all.  It used to be threads were locked after four or five years if there was no activity, and many worthwhile ones were kept going this way. This makes no sense to me.  I might want to revisit an old one and would have to start a new one on the same subject instead.  All this would do, IMO, is just create more clutter. So what’s the reasoning behind this?
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This has not been the policy for the last few years. Formerly, a thread was locked if no one had posted in it for a year or so. In later days, forum members could still post in a sleeping thread. It seems that Admin has reinvented the art of playing bulk lockerbie and put it into practice on all the threads in which no posts afer 16 or 17 April could be found. Even the stickies have not been spared.
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I noticed the same thing on one of my favorite threads to post now and then called "BEER".  It was locked out and if I remember it had 2018 posts in it earlier.

Now that Captcha may be dead, is this our new rallying cry subject to whine and scream about?!?!?!
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Security, speed and stability (and server-load) I'm guessing.

M@x isn't always the most vocal about changes that he makes to the site and have seen no communication about this alteration. I think:
We had some DNS/ hacker attacks which left the site down for a long time and this was implemented after one of the attacks. I don't know if or how having open threads presents a security issue, but I do seem to remember it being said at one time that I can have an effect on server load and it can have an effect on spam and bad bots. Spammers often target older threads, and some users will spam a forum by bumping a ton of older threads which can interfere with any current discussions.

I notice too that the search engine has not been set to "yesterday", so you have to use advanced search and change it to "any date". Searches can put a strain on the server -- since the site kept going down, I'm pretty sure that he wanted to streamline things to make it more stable.

Edited by Logan - October 04 2018 at 07:24
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By the way, I have offered in the past to unlock topics that people wish to post in, but I would ask that this is done quite rarely. I don't visit the site every day, but if you want me to unlock a particular topic, feel free to let me know in this thread (or PM me), AreYouHuman. I've had many such requests in the past. Note: I don't get emailed PM or post notifications and only notice PMs on days that I do log-in.

Edited by Logan - October 04 2018 at 08:56
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Points: 7752 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote progbethyname Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 04 2018 at 17:49
Originally posted by AreYouHuman AreYouHuman wrote:

 

I just did a search for a thread I last posted to over a year ago, only to find it locked.  Now it looks like all topics last posted to five or six months ago are all locked.  Why was this necessary?  I’ve looked for any possible thread that discussed this (apparent) new policy, and I can’t even find any acknowledgement of it at all.  It used to be threads were locked after four or five years if there was no activity, and many worthwhile ones were kept going this way. This makes no sense to me.  I might want to revisit an old one and would have to start a new one on the same subject instead.  All this would do, IMO, is just create more clutter. So what’s the reasoning behind this?

Yeah i was a tad miffed when the beloved 'Iq Appreciation' thread went Lockerbie .Ouch
I definitely see your point. And i have no idea the reason for it .maybe storage or RAM purposes .LOL
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Points: 46828 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote micky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 04 2018 at 18:03
jeez... tough crowd... oh come on.. cut the admin team some slack... if this forum is boring for us... a never ending parade of the same bands, topics and polls one has seen for almost 15 years....just think how boring it must be for them. 

Most all of them having been around in the glory days of the site when they actually kept an admin on emergency call for when the AR team got restless and started gunning down innocent posters and bystanders... or when the booze was really flowing.. other collabs like the man of the blue font hahah

it is rumored the head of the AR thugs had so many warnings from the admin team, which he is rumored to have all ignored, that is inbox was filled with them.  He also blew away the record for hidden and deleted posts and is the 56 game streak of this site. That record will never be touched.  He averaged 3 a week for 4 years.

so now that the forum is dead... what do you want the admins to do..  so locking up threads and acting the chief is pretty much all they have left to do these days now that the AR team picked up stakes and rode into teh sunset and peace and civility descended upon the forum.


Edited by micky - October 04 2018 at 18:04
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Points: 470 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AreYouHuman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 04 2018 at 21:41

Took long enough for this thread to get some love!  Great input from everyone, even if it’s still not clear what’s going on yet.  (Yeah, M@x, we’re looking in your general direction.)  

Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

By the way, I have offered in the past to unlock topics that people wish to post in, but I would ask that this is done quite rarely. I don't visit the site every day, but if you want me to unlock a particular topic, feel free to let me know in this thread (or PM me), AreYouHuman. I've had many such requests in the past. Note: I don't get emailed PM or post notifications and only notice PMs on days that I do log-in.
Thanks for the offer!  I should come up with one or two worth unlocking before too long.

Originally posted by Micky Micky wrote:

jeez... tough crowd... oh come on.. cut the admin team some slack... if this forum is boring for us... a never ending parade of the same bands, topics and polls one has seen for almost 15 years....just think how boring it must be for them.

A lot of subjects for new threads get restarted and re-restarted ad infinitum.  Speaking only for myself, when I get an idea for a post I’ll put in the time to see if there’s already an unlocked thread on that subject  and bump it, before I’d start a new one.


On the "worst abuse on PA ever" thread (about the hopefully-gone-forever captchas), SteveG wrote "Hey, the squeaky wheel gets the grease." Let's hope that applies here too.  And we can all find something else to waa-waa about. LOL



Edited by AreYouHuman - October 04 2018 at 21:53
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Points: 19628 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 05 2018 at 01:17
Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

Security, speed and stability (and server-load) I'm guessing.

M@x isn't always the most vocal about changes that he makes to the site and have seen no communication about this alteration. I think:
We had some DNS/ hacker attacks which left the site down for a long time and this was implemented after one of the attacks. I don't know if or how having open threads presents a security issue, but I do seem to remember it being said at one time that I can have an effect on server load and it can have an effect on spam and bad bots. Spammers often target older threads, and some users will spam a forum by bumping a ton of older threads which can interfere with any current discussions.

I notice too that the search engine has not been set to "yesterday", so you have to use advanced search and change it to "any date". Searches can put a strain on the server -- since the site kept going down, I'm pretty sure that he wanted to streamline things to make it more stable.
 
He did communicate years ago (maybe 8 or 10 years ago)
I seem to remember that it was a space issue and the increasing costs  (could it be that a closed thread takes less space than an open one?)
Spammers usually create their own new threads, from my experience
 
I remember proposing a clean-up of zillions of useless threads and maybe also the never-ending ones like Mariah Carey or the Velvet Rooms thread >> surely with what's posted on those, we could free up much space.
 
As for the Advanced Search function, it still works OK (never use the quick search thingie)
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