Originally Posted by Belaslav
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Can't you just program the board to autolock old threads after a specific time period?
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There is no need to.
The board administrators have the option of changing the default display settings of a forum.
They can change the "Display post's since the beginning" to limit it to "display posts up to a month old."
What this does - is if the topic is not posted in within a month, it still exists in the board archives, just not visible to the average joe unless he changes the display settings of the board (at the bottom of the forum.)
This prevents mistakes when it comes to necroposting.
Adding a rule that punishes the user for necroposting on forums where it can be unclear whether or not the topic is active (class-related forums where not much volume in terms of posting is seen), is just downright setting yourself up for failure.
This isn't a "superly" active forum where old threads get pushed to the second page of the forum within a matter of day's... So you cant expect a necroposting rule such as the one proposed to make any sense in any sort of way.
If this were a really active forum where threads got pushed to the second page after a day or week of inactivity because of volume - then the necroposting rule makes complete sense as you need to physically go to the second page to be able to post on the old topic...
The only way this necroposting rule makes any sort of sense is if you somehow make it such that work is actually needed to find the old thread to post on
This is achieved as I said previously by changing the default forum display settings from "display from the beginning" to "display up until 1 month." This is a vBulletin board so its completely possible.