[wp-forums] On Closing Threads and Legacy Version Support

[Craig]

Interesting discussions around closing threads. I like the idea that a post
that is X days or Y weeks or Z months old could be closed automatically. I
recall occasions when seriously old threads wound up getting bumped to the
latest discussions, thereby knocking a current issue off the list, and this
is not good.

In thinking about closing a thread as soon as it's flagged as resolved, I'm
not sure I like that. First of all, if someone tries the solution offered,
but it doesn't work, then a whole new thread needs to be started. If someone
finds an alternate solution and comes back to share, they find the thread
closed. Then what are they supposed to do? It would feel, to me, that I just
had the door slammed in my face...here I am trying to help, I find a way,
but I can't report it without creating a new thread. If I create a new
thread, do I mark it as resolved right away? If so, it obviously gets closed
to any other caveats that might be raised by my proposed fix, or, indeed,
additions or suggestions to my work.

This is why I don't support the idea of closing threads simply because they
are resolved. Impose a temporal restriction on posting, but don't
automatically close on resolution.

As a tangent, based on Lloyd's suggestion about a WP Environment field, that
would surely make future searching better so a person could filter results
by WP version. As well, I'm wondering about support for older versions of
WP. Many companies abandon support for very old versions of their software -
would there be a chance that the forums be restricted in this way? What
about a forum for the old versions? (I can hear Podz grinding his teeth at
my suggestion of another forum <grin>). I bring this up only as a topic for
discussion on how to make the best possible use of time for mods and
helpers. I would think that at the very least, the forums should support
those versions that are most stable and secure, so if a person is using
WP1.x and should really be using WP1.x.x, then they should be told to u/g
for security purposes and no "official" support should be given to them. The
support forums should not help those who can't/won't u/g to a secure
version.

I've stated this before, but I'm very happy to see all of the recent
dialogue happening regarding the forums. It's all about making things better
for all, and that's the laudable purpose of the open source movement.
Props to you all.

Craig.
Nuclear Moose.