Trap Old Topics

[Baniboy 3]

Today, I'm critisizing Xisto forums. Do we really need the topics made in year 2004-2006? I mean, they are dead topics and no-one posts on them anymore. I need replies. And I don't mean the tutorials and other helpful topics.Thank youEDIT: Please vote on the poll. Merry Xmas to everyone!

Edited December 22, 2008 by baniboy (see edit history)

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

Today, I'm critisizing Xisto forums. Do we really need the topics made in year 2004-2006? I mean, they are dead topics and no-one posts on them anymore. I need replies. And I don't mean the tutorials and other helpful topics.
Thank you

I have to strongly agree. Some of these go way back. Yes these are nice to look back on but honestly do they need to be here in the forum, even in the arcives? Wouldnt it be better for space and the database to remove them, put them on CD or something if they are really needed.

[Mordent 0]

I'm torn between my need for cleanliness and order (and therefore cleaning up ancient posts), or keeping the information provided by these posts, no matter how minimal. To be fair, I often find answers to a whole range of questions during Google searches which lead me to forum posts on some forum or another that has a topic that should be pushing up daisies.Besides, how do you differentiate between a useful topic and a useless one? Sure, there are some pretty clear cut ones, but there's a lot of fuzzy grey in the middle. If the moderator who's going through some of the older posts (assuming you don't just go for the shotgun approach and move any threads that haven't been posted in for X years and aren't in a tutorial section or similar), why are the expected to know if one of the posts someone made a few years ago is still relevant, correct, or just garbage?Sure, the idea's good in theory, but in practice I'd have to say I disagree...

[Saint_Michael 3]

Ahh a classic topic and of course with the classic answer, the simple answer is you can't because if you start deleting old topics then it will start affecting everyone who posted in those old topics. Of course, now that we are no longer using hosting credits we don't have to worry about losing massive amount of hosting credits, but archiving the old stuff might be a possibility now. However, the problem is those you can't be selective on what topics can be archive and so if your going to archive 2004, 2005, 2006 then everything will be archive including tutorials and so the alternative solution is that if you see a really old topic that has been beaten to death in replies, report the topic and mention that it needs to be closed.

[jlhaslip 4]

I am pretty sure the impact of Deleting Topics will be similar to the old system, except the Members would lose MyCents instead of Credits, so deleting them is not the answer.Perhaps Archiving the Topics which do not have a reply since 18 months ago would be the right thing to do? Then someone would need to write the connection script to the Archives, and the Google results will then be all messed up. I'm thinking that the old Topics will remain simply for SEO reasons. SEO is the lifeblood for new members and the connection to Google is critical for that, so don't expect a whole lot to change right away.

[xpress 0]

Yes....deleting the old topics is not a solution. And that will affect all those postesd in those topics. And I agree with jlhaslip about SEO issue. Thats very important one we have to consider. And you see...there are still many members replying in very old dead topics(even in topics that have no posts since 2004). Thats because they want to post more to earn more myCents....so deleting old topics will affect new members as well.

[Baniboy 3]

I agree with Saint Michael, they should be archived and also not shown in the "Similar topics"-box on the bottom of the topics. But Still viewable by google and other search engines. Well that's what I think, I'm waiting for more replies!

[miladinoski 1]

No!

Do not delete them. Nevermind that they are old and nobody has replied to them, because for one they are useful for SEO and getting traffic from Google and other search engines and thus making profit towards the ads Xisto puts on the special pages intended for traffic that comes from search engines, and for two they can also be revived by new members and given new life so the debate (if it can still be discussed of course) can rise again

Also it the MyCents of older members can drop down, and nobody wants that, right?

[Mordent 0]

Overall, I'd have to say that this argument is pretty useless, though, as what would be the point of deleting archiving them? It takes time, effort, adds to confusion ("I'm sure I saw a post from last year in here that I wanted to read somewhere..."), might damage the forum's SEO, and the forum is running fine without doing it.

 

Sure, you don't get as many replies from dead topics, but if you check the date on them before replying then you won't have a problem of no one replying back to you...that said, if someone replies and the thread gets moved back up the time line then more people will see it and people are inclined to reply as well. It's quite possible to resurrect a thread by adding one well thought out post an age after the original one has lost its buzz. In light of that, I decided to make a little list of pros and cons.

 

Pros for Deleting Old Topics:

Tidies the forum up...marginally...

Anything else?

Cons for Deleting Old Topics:

Might negatively affect the longer-term users' myCENTs

Could take quite a while to work out how to do (pass as to if this is true or not, but the point is that it takes some time)

Might damage the forum's SEO.

A lot of still useful information would be lost.

Pros for Archiving Old Topics

Same as "Pros for Deleting Old Topics"

Cons for Archiving Old Topics

Same as "Cons for Deleting Old Topics", minus the fact that the information would be retained...somewhere.

Pros for Leaving Old Topics

Nothing needs to be done.

All information and threads are retained

No problems with SEO.

No problems with members losing myCENTs.

Cons for Leaving Old Topics

...none? The site's not even slow, so the database must be fine.

Any questions? Edited December 22, 2008 by Mordent (see edit history)

[Nabb 0]

Mordent => I think it's somewhat obvious that the cons for deleting old topics are same as 'Cons for Deleting Old Topics' :)I think that it's fine as it is, but I would like it if there were some rules regarding 'bumping' of topics that are old, especially if the post doesn't add anything new (well there could be, but I haven't seen anything about this and this still occurs fairly often).

[Mordent 0]

Mordent => I think it's somewhat obvious that the cons for deleting old topics are same as 'Cons for Deleting Old Topics'

 

I think that it's fine as it is, but I would like it if there were some rules regarding 'bumping' of topics that are old, especially if the post doesn't add anything new (well there could be, but I haven't seen anything about this and this still occurs fairly often).

Whoops! Meant to have that one as the cons for archiving old topics are the same as the cons for deleting old topics. Eh, no one's perfect...