years of unfollowed post need removed

[SmallFarmChick]

I love old posts... The more the better! I love researching on here. I always find new info wether it's an old post or a new one!

 

[behrable]

old post with info to research are really great , but a post with 300 replys with an arguement that has nothing to do with tthe topic is what i think needs removed

 

[griffinkid02]

There is another aspect to this as well. When you start removing old threads, anyone who posted on tha thread and is still around will have their forum post number affected. This could affect titles and rankings. I don't know how long an infraction stays "on record" somewhere in some archive, even though it has expired, but that data too would be affected. I guess, long story short, what I'm saying is removing those old threads would actually generate a TON of work for the algorythms that run the site, as well as mindnumbing fact checking work, and flaming complaint

answering for the mods. It's really easier for everyone involved to just let them lay dead. Of course that doesn't address the problem that the bajillions of words laying around presents for people looking for a specific bit of info. It IS rather daunting to need a quick answer for something,d o a search, and even with the most specific and limiting search filter end up with thousands of pages worth of material. But until someone comes up with an elegant and streamlined solution to balance the two we just fall back on the Ole Reliable plan: Start a ne thread and ask the question again

.

 

[ivan3]

behrable wote: old post with info to research are really great , but a post with 300 replys with an arguement that has nothing to do with tthe topic is what i think needs removed

That is the purpose of using Advanced Search: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/search-and-advanced-search-tutorial (oh, and when you have your parameters declared - USE THE SEARCH BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE).

Have fun!

 

[Georgia1984]

All of the old posts with useful information is why I love this forum. It is also why I don't post very often... Usually I can find answers to my questions just by searching for them.

 

[NanaKat]

Thank you Ivan3 for posting the link from the learning center. I printed that one off for my BYC folder. Very helpful tutorial.

I love the search mode and have found very useful information from those older threads.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

I was just talking to some friends about this very subject!

We leave all old threads open on purpose. We figure RELEVANT posts to old threads may re-engage some old members and also dig up some very helpful info that was buried. We have some amazing content that is dug up like buried treasure.

There are some cases where we will individually lock old threads that get bumped that shouldn't be (irrelevant / outdated) but in most cases we leave them open.

 

[EweSheep]

Do the old "unanswered" threads get deleted after a period of time? I'm talking about an OP would ask a question and NO ONE ever replied, there fore that thread would just get 'lost' in the files of old BYC cache. Wouldn't it save your mega bytes of storage for the server???? There are alot of UNanswered threads, never being replied so I figure it might help the server's brain of storing MORE valueable information or would it just "too much work" or the server don't care how much information you pack in there that it NEVER runs out of memory space to hold all those information we put on BYC.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Good question. Short answer is "no".

We don't close or delete any posts. Not only is there no automated way to do this, but we believe that any pros of deleting or locking them are outweighed by the cons.

Single unanswered posts / threads don't really take up much space. In fact, I bet the megabytes of data uploaded in the form of photos to BYC in a single day are many times larger than all the unanswered posts / threads ever created.

Here's another reason why we don't do it. Imagine if back in 2008 someone posted a question about a sick chicken. They provided a ton of detailed information, symptoms, etc. Unfortunately nobody at the time knew the answer. Perhaps it was something so odd that nobody had ever heard / seen it before. Maybe 4 years later someone is searching the internet and that member's post is discovered and someone joins BYC then with their first post they say, "We have a chicken with this exact same problem! Here is what we've done and learned...." Perhaps the original poster from 4 years ago found the answer but never posted it on BYC. They might be subscribed to the post and get a notification that someone replied, then come back and update their 4 year old post with details on the problem and how to solve it.

In my opinion, holding onto thousands of unanswered topics is worth just a single case like the above.