A way to mark threads that are really old?

[Rucker]

Often enough new members will reply to a thread that is quite old, not realizing the OP may be long gone.

Is there any way to highlight threads that have not been active for a couple of years?

Or maybe make the date a little more visible?

[Booyah45828]

I've seen that too in the last few months. It'd be nice if a pop up would appear when a user, especially a new one, hits the reply button on old threads. Something along the lines of.

"This thread is XXX days/years old, are you sure your reply is relevant and needed? If not, perhaps you should start a new thread."

Most would consider such a thing as proper forum etiquette. Proper etiquette was something that was drilled into me years ago when forums were just starting. Then again, most newbies are new to forums in general, so they wouldn't know.

[Dbacks2k4]

I think a lot of them are finding the old threads through search. Which is good compared to the fb groups where nobody searches anything and posts the same 3 questions day in and day out.

[Rwnielsen]

I get caught up in those all the time. I go to add my .02 and see the OP date.

[Rucker]

Originally Posted by Dbacks2k4

I think a lot of them are finding the old threads through search. Which is good compared to the fb groups where nobody searches anything and posts the same 3 questions day in and day out.

That is a great perspective! I'm in several of those FB groups but rarely join in for that reason-it feels like they're asking but not listening for an answer (but don't get us started on a rant!).

[The lazy farmer]

Im pretty new here. If I am not mistaken there is a date on each thread when it was started. So highlighting them is a bit redundant. When you can just look at the date it was started and see that it is old.

[Rucker]

Originally Posted by The lazy farmer

Im pretty new here. If I am not mistaken there is a date on each thread when it was started. So highlighting them is a bit redundant. When you can just look at the date it was started and see that it is old.

...which would work if people actually looked at it!

I'm not sure there's a solution that will fix it entirely, but frequently enough people reply to an old thread, and having some kind of popup or a banner would improve things.