Most posts on this forum are only closed when they are either useless or already solved.
ok maybe we have differing ideas of “useless”. either that or i have really bad luck when it comes to looking for solutions to issues here.
for me, about 9 times out of 10, a topic is closed before a solution is posted.
Topics aren’t closed unless they are over a year old, or have some reason to be closed.
Just curious though, can you link some examples of non-“useless” threads that were closed?
Sure. Usually they relate to plugins where topics don’t get a lot of traffic but some bugs persist. Even after a year of inactivity i might come along from a google search for a specific problem and be scrolling down and then boom. No more replies.
This is especially frustrating when I eventually find the solution and I’m not able to come back and post it for the next poor soul who stumbles across the same issue and I can’t help but think that maybe someone else would have done the same thing before I did. Here are a few recent ones I’ve had trouble with…
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/admin-ajax-not-working?replies=4
(there was a proposed solution at the end of this one that didn’t work for me. the topic was closed so i couldn’t add what did end up working for me. also this topic is a year old but the last reply was 8 months ago.)
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/installphp-blank-internal-server-error-500?replies=6
(I’ve noticed that a lot of the ones i was seeing were indeed over a year old but at the same time, if the problem doesn’t expire after a year maybe the discussion shouldn’t either. I linked this one because it was marked “resolved” but the “resolution” for the user was to delete the database and wordpress install and start from scratch. That wasn’t an option for me so I had to keep digging).
I don’t want to keep looking up old issues I’ve had and I didn’t create this thread to gripe but more to suggest that it might be more useful if unresolved threads weren’t locked so aggressively. I’d love it if this forum could be my first stop for if I’m having issues with wordpress or a plugin but for the most part I tend to be skeptical of links back to here.
It seems as if the support topics are treated as issues specific to the user that asked the initial question and not as an archive for the rest of the users that might find the topic from a search engine and all too often there are issues that come up that share the same symptoms but might have different solutions which really throws off the signal to noise ratio when searching.
If there’s no REPLY in a topic over X months old (I want to say it’s 6 but I don’t have the math handy), then the ticket is automagicially closed.
It seems as if the support topics are treated as issues specific to the user that asked the initial question
That’s really it in a nutshell. Somewhat because .. have you ever tried to help a dozen people in on, single-threaded topic? It’s a bloody nightmare! You go back and forth, loose track of who asked what and who needs help and who’s kbitzing. A lot of the regulars here had torn our hair out trying to keep up. Every server is a snowflake and not all solutions fix everyone, so having a new topic helps more than you know! 😀
If something is bad code, it SHOULD get fixed (in core or in the plugin) so the old topic won’t be needed anymore. If it’s weird theme question, it’s generally pretty user specific. That’s the majority of the questions here.
I seem to recall 12 months being mentioned as the automagic thread close point.
It’s a bloody nightmare!
Added to which, people tack on questions that relate to completely different problems. Or problems with similar(ish) symptoms but different root causes. Or they’re using a completely different version of WP/theme/plugin (delete as applicable). In short, unless you’re using the same version of WP, same theme & plugins on the same host and have an identical set of symptoms, you really should be posting a new topic.
If topics are closed before the automagic cut-off point, it’s often because we know that any new post tacked onto the end of an old topic has a slim-to-zero chance of being answered and we’re trying to push people towards posting new topics that have a much better chance of being answered.
