Forum rules: necro-posting

[sozzled]

@Webdongle: you need to follow the timeline. I wrote

... every day, as forum moderators target individual topics (and lock them)

... as an observation on how things had occurred in the past. I wrote this merely as an observation that forum moderators were required to—past tense—take action. The moderation team will have less need to individually lock topics in future in order to safeguard the community from the woes of necroposting.

Filibustering means to delay progress by wasting time (usually by making long speeches). Progress has been made! Let us all rejoice!

[sozzled]

Now that the new approach—auto-locking old topics that have not been active for two years or more—has settled in, we've seen a considerable reduction in the incidence of necropost spam and (I think the moderators would also agree) this has lightened the moderators' workload. We can all relax more.

I'm marking this topic resolved.

It took some lobbying but it was worth it. Thanks @ooffick and to others who supported the change. I have fewer reservations about accepting a forum moderation role, if I were to be invited to participate in that process.

[sozzled]

We have implemented a new feature which locks all topics which are not updated within 2 years.

I've noticed that the automatic locking of ancient topics doesn't seem to apply to stickied topics. Perhaps the feature could also be used with them, too?

[ooffick]

That is correct, sticky topics deserve special handling.

If those are that old that they deserve to be locked (if the topic is not locked from the beginning), those topics might need to removed as a sticky altogether.

BTW, this is not an invitation to go through all the sticky posts on the forum, but if you come across a sticky post which you think should be locked, feel free to report it. And we can evaluate the usefulness of those topics.

Kind regards
Olaf

[sozzled]

That is correct, sticky topics deserve special handling.

It's a pity but I understand what you're saying.

If those are that old that they deserve to be locked (if the topic is not locked from the beginning), those topics might need to removed as a sticky altogether.

I'm sure I can think of a few dozen off the top of my head (especially all those "Welcome to Joomla" stickies (mostly created a decade ago) in non-English language forum categories that are always being "resurrected" by necro-posters!

BTW, this is not an invitation to go through all the sticky posts on the forum, but if you come across a sticky post which you think should be locked, feel free to report it. And we can evaluate the usefulness of those topics.

I agree that this should be an invitation to plague the forum moderators with time-wasting activities; they have enough to do without this. Never fear, particularly as the non-English language posters resurrect ancient stickies, it might be an idea to just lock the topics anyway particularly if they were created many years ago.

Cheers and many thanks for your reply.

[sozzled]

I'm not apologising for revisiting this matter. It took a long time before an automated procedure was put in place to automatically lock all topics that have not been updated in a certain time.

Update: we have implemented a new feature which locks all topics which are not updated within 2 years.

This has worked reasonably well but it appears that some people still attempt to keep dead topics alive long after they should have been put out to pasture.

I have a suggestion. How long do people consider topics should remain "active" (i.e. topics are created, sometimes with a sense of urgency, and then they're abandoned)? Perhaps two years is too generous. Perhaps one years is overly generous. A lot can happen in a year; for example, in the last twelve months, thirteen new versions of J! 3.x were released.

Things we talked about, two years ago, are probably out-of-date today. In reality, therefore, maybe we could automatically lock old topics, that have not been updated for the past six months and thus we could focus our attention on matters that are current and relevant to today? What do you think? Is two years too generous? Is six months too restrictive? I think the answer lies somewhere between the two.

[ooffick]

I think 6 month is way to restrictive. I say even 1 year is too restrictive.

While I agree with you a lot can happen in 2 years, I disagree with you that we should make this very restrictive.

Kind regards
Olaf

[sozzled]

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the fact that you took the time to reply. I notice that quite a few spam posters attempt to "revitalise" old topics that have been long abandoned in the hope that someone will respond—and, of course, it's a waste of everyone's time when they do that. My point is a simple one: people use this forum to obtain information in order to fix a problem. If a problem needs fixing then a problem needs fixing. If people ask for help then, one would expect, either a problem can be fixed within a few days or it's not worth the effort to try to fix the problem. I think everyone would agree with that.

Those of us who are regular users of this forum expect that problems will be fixed quickly. If a problem takes 6 months to fix then why would people bother to use a forum? If a problem takes 12 months to fix then why would people use Joomla?

Basically, by saying that "a lot can happen in 2 years" (and that setting the length of time for a discussions about problems at 2 years is not-so-restrictive), my conclusion from this response is that it can take months (or years) to fix Joomla problems and, for this reason, we should allow at least 2 years to keep topics open for discussion.

I think that's a bad look for the forum but it's even a worse look for the quality of Joomla. I would ask that you and the forum team (in consultation with OSM board) to revisit this again and see what would be more useful in the context of retaining a healthy, vibrant group of volunteer helpers to offer our advice on matters that are topical, relevant and current.

I hate necroposting. It took months before the forum team accepted the possibility of automatically closing forum topics. When action was eventually taken, we saw an immediate reduction in forum spam. I think we could achieve even better results in reducing forum spam (via necroposting) if we tightened the rules a little and reduced the period from two years to, say one year. It's not a huge ask, really. It's a very simple thing.

Let's be clear: there are not as many forum moderators available today as there were two years ago (and many of the language moderators have disappeared for all time). For the rest of use, when we see spam, we have little ability to deal with it (apart from reporting it and wait for a few hours before that problem is dealt with). It's a game of whack-a-mole.

So, in the interests of the forum community, I would ask that you reconsider in the light of how this discussion evolved over time. Thank you.

[sozzled]

@ooffick: Would you agree to, at least, discuss the matter with other members of the forum team (and possibly with the Operations DC) before you rule out my suggestion, please?

[ooffick]

I don't think the Operations Department is the right platform to discuss a small little rule and yes I will put this on the agenda for this month global mod forum meeting.

Kind regards
Olaf

[sozzled]

Thank you very much, @ooffick. I can't ask for more than that. I hope that common sense will prevail and that a compromise will be achieved (i.e. somewhere between 6 months to 2 years).

[sozzled]

Question: was my suggestion about the policy on [automatically locking forum topics to prevent] necroposting discussed at the last forum team meeting? It doesn't appear that the matter was discussed (see https://volunteers.joomla.org/teams/for ... -25-5-2020). If the matter was discussed, what was the outcome of those discussions?

[ooffick]

We have changed this to 12 Month now. (It might take 48h before this change will come into effect)

Kind Regards
Olaf

[sozzled]

Thanks, @ooffick. Let's see how this goes in a few months from now.

I agree that some discussion topics can remain open for longer than other topics: there are a few categories where "discussions" remain open [more or less] forever with no sign of them ending. A few categories (e.g the so-called "SEO" category) become honey-pots for all manner of salespeople advertising various "solutions" and are repeatedly resurrected merely to divert attention from the purpose(s) for which the forum exists. It would be nice if some discussion categories could impose different time limits but I accept (for the time being) 12 months is probably a reasonable compromise.

We've come a long way since I started this topic; we've seen a significant reduction in necroposting on the forum and, for that, I'm thankful. The forum is better for the changes that we've seen over the last couple of years.