Agreed but maybe something like :
Days 1-30 : normal setting
Days 31-60: moderated automatically
Days 60+: closed or moderated auto again at owners discretion
This has often been asked for before (examples: 1, 2, 3), but Matt thinks it is a silly idea (partly because his own site has occasionally had highly informative comments added to very old posts.) Perhaps he’ll change his mind once his site has been running for 20 or 30 years (or perhaps by then we’ll have mechanisms to better simulate real-world conversation, so replying to an old utterance is more “difficult” than replying to a new one).
Meanwhile, GamerZ has produced a hack for what you want, and so has davidhouse.
“or perhaps by then we’ll have mechanisms to better simulate real-world conversation, so replying to an old utterance is more “difficult” than replying to a new one”
My wife *never* has a problem doing this 🙂
If you check the WPHacks section of the wiki, there’s a hack that will auto close old postings. I’m sure it can be modified to do what you’ve suggested.
TG