Topic: Saving moderator time

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I'm inclined to agree.  If you let people do things, they will.  If you're not going to allow them to resurrect old topics, then the topics should be locked.  The poster can reference an old topic with a link, assuming, of course, that they know how.

[Looking]

It is near impossible to create an all inclusive set of rules for a forum

I agree. In my personal experience making more all inclusive rules and leaving judgement calls to very rare and small windows is better otherwise members can see a discrepancy between moderators which may lead them to think they are being targeted by the individual rather than the rule or policy.

Support has always been a strong point for SMF, that's why I started using it

Likewise, one of the key interests I have here.

...by not letting people post in the wrong place in the first place.

This is how I approach all my error coding. Over the years I've seen that people will look more kindly on a default message telling you "no, you can't do that" than my moderators or myself having to run and point it out after the fact and say so.

[SpacePhoenix]

What about creating a sub-board in "2.0 Support" called "Upgrading to 2.0 from 1.1" which would have all the threads from people having problems with upgrading. The whole of the "1.1 Support" board could then be closed and archived

[Illori]

we did not have people posting to the old installing and upgrading board, that is why it got archived. a new board i dont see solving the problem.

[zappaDPJ]

Something that sets forums apart from other social platforms is content which doesn't become obsolete and lost within a short period of time. Support forums provide a searchable knowledge base which is potentially of tremendous value to anyone using the supported product. If resurrecting old threads is a problem to someone then that someone really doesn't understand forums in my mind.

[Arantor]

Resurrecting old threads in a support forum is frequently counterproductive though, since what tends to happen is that you end up with people getting a similar error message from a completely different cause getting confused.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Locked topics still remain as part of the knowledge base.

[Deaks]

TBH their are a couple of boards that should be archived due to inactivity, one board has not had any conversation (besides a new sticky) since 2016, another since 2017 and finally 8 January 2018 (happy to send a list of these boards to a team member)

[zappaDPJ]

Resurrecting old threads in a support forum is frequently counterproductive though, since what tends to happen is that you end up with people getting a similar error message from a completely different cause getting confused.

Locked topics still remain as part of the knowledge base.

Both valid points but in our case they are somewhat negated by members contributing to support requests regardless of whether the thread is entirely relevant to the latest post. In my mind a general locked thread policy suggests a ticketing system might be preferable but each to there own

[Arantor]

There is a ticketing system here but only for charter members.

[Kindred]

And a ticketing system is private...   it missed the point of an open support forum where others can look for existing answers.