Warn users if replying to a potentially "dead" thread? 💡

extreme_one

Flarum extension to notify poster when they're attempting to reply to an old thread.

harrrrrry

Rather than merely "notifying" the poster, it might be more useful if the extension could be made to prevent reviving the thread altogether, unless it's the OP of the thread or staff, or a thread specifically identified as intended for long term feedback.

extreme_one

harrrrrry I suspect it would be relatively simple to automatically lock any thread older than XXX days, rendering then read-only.

endorphin

giffgaff didn't automatically lock old threads with Lithium, instead they manually locked them if they were bumped and were out of date. It's been discussed a few times in Contribute but unless there was a technical reason for not being able to do it, giffgaff have so far resisted. They did explain why not in a reply to one of the Contribute threads, IIRC, but I can't find it.

thunderdragon

Hi again everyone! 🙂
Both myself and a few other users have found ourselves unwittingly exhuming old threads by Quick Replying to them without realising that the threads in question are potentially "dead" i.e. they havn't had any regular activity over the past few months or longer. ⚠️
This isn't helped too much by Flarum showing post dates relative to the present time (Rather than literal time) meaning that recent exhumations make the whole thread appear current and OK to reply to. 🤯

Overall: When Quick replying it's easy to miss the fact the thread is actually quite old and is likely no longer current. With Lithium threads auto-locked when they hadn't been replied to in a while, and this helped users to avoid that sort of mistake. 👍️

So what I'd like to propose is that - When a thread is potentially "dead" (That's to say: It either hasn't been replied to in the last 1-3 months, or there's been a big gap between former and recent activity) - An advisory notice is displayed at the top of the Quick Reply box to the left of the Minimise/Maximise/Close tab, and/or the Quick Reply box is displayed with a different background colour, possibly a bit like these:

This'd make it much easier to see when a reply is probably unnecessary or no longer relevant, and might help to keep exhumations down to a manageable level. 🙂
+++ 🚄 ThunderDragon 🤘 +++

bobrobinson

thunderdragon
Hiya Mate.
As i was reading this i thought to myself that the colour could change. And having read the rest of it you have the same idea. I totaly agree with you on that as theres many threads that iv come accross thats realy old. Yep mate thats a good idea. All the best Bob 😀

germansheppard234

thunderdragon well the idea is ok but due to us having no way to mark threads as seen we keep reading them again
So if you click on thread again it comes to last reply added so now we can see original thread by hovering over username u can see question but no data
Get my drift hence more replys

extreme_one

Something like this, perhaps?

thunderdragon

extreme_one Aye, that's pretty much what I was thinking, but it didn't show up when I searched. I'll request a merge in a moment! 😇 👍️

bobrobinson As i was reading this i thought to myself that the colour could change. And having read the rest of it you have the same idea.

@bobrobinson Changing the colour of the reply box would make it immediately clear that the thread might be an old one or there are other issues which might make someone not want to spend time replying to something that might shortly be closed or deleted. Do the examples I give above achieve that aim well enough, do you think? 🙂
+++ 🚄 ThunderDragon 🤘 +++

bobrobinson

thunderdragon

thunderdragon @bobrobinson Changing the colour of the reply box would make it immediately clear that the thread might be an old one or there are other issues which might make someone not want to spend time replying to something that might shortly be closed or deleted. Do the examples I give above achieve that aim well enough, do you think? 🙂
+++ 🚄 ThunderDragon 🤘 +++

Hiya. Yep its a great idea and hope it is implemented ( sooner rather than later ).
To change the color of the bacground is the perfect answer as it will highlight that there is a warning.
All the best Bob

germansheppard234

bobrobinson thunderdragon
It would have to have warning on every reply or u would get what i just posted screenshot if not the thread would be revived
Of coarse some would not read warning but nothing u can do to beat that apart from flag to get it locked
I got caught out a couple times since flarum started
Cheers

thunderdragon

germansheppard234 Aye, me too - It's one reason why I proposed having the warning on the (Quick) Reply field so it's in a place where people will see it if they try to reply. I've unwittingly caused a few exhumations in the last week myself, and in each case it's because I've not noticed that it's an old thread. 🤯 👍️

Semantic modifications like what I propose here (A warning on the post form) and Flarum extensions on the back-end (Like the one Extreme_One proposed recently) could make avoiding user bugs like that a lot easier. 🙂
+++ 🚄 ThunderDragon 🤘 +++