[wp-forums] Closing down threads regarding old versions of WP

[James Huff]

"I just don't much care for the arbitrary shutting down of unresolved threads.We do it because it's unlikely to be useful after that amount of time, but that also doesn't lend itself well to having useful archives or helping people with problems.”

I thought the same, but an unresolved thread is still unresolved and in the archives, whether it’s closed or not. Leaving it open wouldn’t lead to it being resolved a year down the line any more than it would be 6 months down the line.

In a perfect world, we’d answer and resolve every thread, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect any length of time to contribute to that resolution.

With regards to helping people, wouldn’t it be more helpful to them if they were more encouraged to open a fresh no-reply thread rather than replying to a 2-page thread about WP 3.7 with nothing more than a “me too”?

________
James Huff
http://macmanx.com
http://automattic.com

On July 3, 2014 at 11:10:10 AM, Otto (otto at ottodestruct.com) wrote:

Nothing concrete, no. I just don't think that the release schedule is
particularly relevant to the support forums. The one-year-close thing is
something I've been thinking about for a while, and while it definitely
prevents excessive chatter in the wrong (old) threads, I'm not sure it's
the best solution there.

I don't pretend to know the right answer here though. I just don't much
care for the arbitrary shutting down of unresolved threads. We do it
because it's unlikely to be useful after that amount of time, but that also
doesn't lend itself well to having useful archives or helping people with
problems. It's not the best user experience, certainly.

Still thinking about it though.

-Otto


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:52 PM, James Huff <james at automattic.com> wrote:

> Any particular reason to keep it at 1 year or push it back to 1.5?
>
> ________
> James Huff
> http://macmanx.com
> http://automattic.com
>
> On July 3, 2014 at 10:05:48 AM, Otto (otto at ottodestruct.com) wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:32 AM, James Huff <james at automattic.com> wrote:
>
> > We had a chat about this today in the meetup on IRC and are thinking that
> > auto-close after 3 months is the sweet spot, especially considering the
> > rapid release schedule.
> >
> > Pros: More users opening their own threads. Less belief that an issue in
> > 3.7 is relevant to 3.9 (for example). Less "me too!" on ancient threads.
> >
> > Cons: People will no longer be able to reply to their ancient threads
> that
> > they forgot about for 3 months, which isn’t actually a negative point,
> > because we have a much better chance of seeing a new no-reply thread
> than a
> > 3-month-old thread with a reply.
> >
> > Otto, what do you think, and if agreed, would you please make this happen
> > for us? :)
> >
> >
> I don't agree. I like it at one year. If anything, I'd rather push it back
> to 18 months, but definitely not forward to 6 months.
>
> -Otto
> _______________________________________________
> wp-forums mailing list
> wp-forums at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-forums
> _______________________________________________
> wp-forums mailing list
> wp-forums at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-forums
>
_______________________________________________
wp-forums mailing list
wp-forums at lists.automattic.com
http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-forums