topic Thread Locking in Our Community

Thread Locking

DGSketcher — Mon, 08 May 2023 22:23:15 GMT

I appreciate the intent of thread locking and I do support it in principle, but I think the 12 month inactive locking rule is a bit quick in the big scheme of AC development. Comments made on AC27's release could be locked when AC28 turns up, but I note from past comments some users actually delay deployment of AC by a year to avoid bugs. Those users may then connect with the old problem and not be able to discuss the related issue. Personally I would have thought a minimum two year lock window was more realistic.

I also think it is perhaps inappropriate to be locking the wishes threads. There are ideas in those threads that are still being requested and commented on after MANY years. Allowing further comments allows users to highlight how long the missing idea has been requested or how it could be adapted in more recent versions of AC. If a wish is solved (or implemented in an update) then lock them, but until then I feel we should be allowed to continue commenting.

Re: Thread Locking

Noemi Balogh — Tue, 09 May 2023 06:34:17 GMT

Thank you for your feedback. The current 1-year period is something we agreed together with the Moderator team, but of course, we can revisit any time. Please note that the 1 year is counted from the last activity - if people keep posting on a thread - in your example, about Archicad 27 - then this thread won't be locked. In case you experience different behaviour, please let me know.

About the Wishes board, I understand your point, but in my personal opinion when a thread is abandoned for years, it is better to start a fresh one, so the topic gets its visibility. Previous threads will be available in the system and it can be tracked down anytime later.

What I would like to ask is that we give it a try - if in a couple of months we see this leads nowhere good, I can adjust the system.

Thank you again and I hope you can find some good improvements too in the recent changes.

Re: Thread Locking

Lingwisyer — Tue, 09 May 2023 09:19:50 GMT

Given the entire Developer Forum has been locked, where are GDL questions supposed to be asked? And I guess API questions get pushed over to the archicadAPI site, though I do not recall there being a place there either...

Re: Thread Locking

Noemi Balogh — Tue, 09 May 2023 09:20:59 GMT

@Lingwisyer good catch, I forgot to unlock it. Now you can use it again.

Re: Thread Locking

furtonb — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 12:56:37 GMT

I just want to echo @DGSketcher 's opinion, I wondered why all of the threads are locked regarding door/window glazed area calculation – I found threads going back 5 years which could be continued today as no visible improvement happened since then (using AC26). I though my e-mail address is not verified, or something like this.

I don't really see any reason to lock any threads apart from really long and chaotic ones, because it just scatters information for the occasional user and increases the barrier of entry: if I had to just make a comment, I would've, but starting from scratch with proper referencing to previous discussions takes more time, that one might not have at a current moment.

Can you please reconsider this decision and increase the time window before locking?

Re: Thread Locking

hevi — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 10:21:48 GMT

@DGSketcher wrote:
I also think it is perhaps inappropriate to be locking the wishes threads. There are ideas in those threads that are still being requested and commented on after MANY years. Allowing further comments allows users to highlight how long the missing idea has been requested or how it could be adapted in more recent versions of AC. If a wish is solved (or implemented in an update) then lock them, but until then I feel we should be allowed to continue commenting.

To this it should be noted that locking also supresses the thumb functionality which however pathetic is the only way for individual users to on their own share their needs and wants due to GS inability to deliver on the long promised new wish functionality. I have a really hard time seeing the user benefit from locking wish threads.

Re: Thread Locking

Eduardo Rolon — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 21:16:45 GMT

Just to add an example of a 2016 thread that got a new question:

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Visualization/Exploded-axo-view/m-p/394492#M24375

Re: Thread Locking

Paul King — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 02:31:15 GMT

Strongly oppose thread locking. I am finding it rather irritating, and believe it takes much of the value of this forum away.

There is much to be said for following up on an old thread once new information or insight or experience relevant to long standing questions or problems comes to light.

There is value in a single thread that collects together and shows the evolution of answers and views on slow-burn topics of enduring relevance.

Perhaps if the ArchiCAD development team routinely solved user problems posted here with each patch and release, then a case for locking stale threads might exist.

By locking threads, users are forced to tediously restate all their long running problems with every new release of ArchiCAD that seems not to solve those problems. if they hope to elicit new solutions or better workarounds - and will quickly learn not to bother posting at all.

And how should one go about answering such a question if the slow rate of change in ArchiCAD means the thread has lain dormant with no new answers for 2 years, but on year 3, someone has new information? Are they seriously required to repost someone else's question, in order to supply an answer?

Re: Thread Locking

Barry Kelly — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 03:25:59 GMT

@Paul King wrote:

Strongly oppose thread locking. I am finding it rather irritating, and believe it takes much of the value of this forum away.

There is much to be said for following up on an old thread once new information or insight or experience relevant to long standing questions or problems comes to light.

I am not sure if automatic thread locking is good or bad.

But I think it has more value than not doing it at all.

And manually locking threads would just be impossible.

It is possible for moderators to unlock a thread - I just tried it.

So if you need to reply, please start a new thread and reference back to the locked thread.

Really that should be enough in most cases.

For example ...

XYZ is still not working after all these years.

Please refer to old thread (place link here).

If that is the case then there is probably no need to unlock the old thread.

No new information is being added.

But the new thread highlights that the problem still exists and it can attract new replies if need be.

But if you have new information or a solution to an old thread, post that in a new thread, again with a reference to the old locked one.

Then one of the moderators can unlock the old thread and merge the new content to it.

Leaving that thread open for further replies if need be.

So just to clarify, if there is new information that can answer an old locked thread, moderators can unlock and merge the posts.

If it just a continuation of the same problem then link to the old post/s and just carry on in a new thread.

Again if a solution is found, the posts can all be merged.

Barry.

Re: Thread Locking

Paul King — Sun, 26 Nov 2023 11:09:04 GMT

Yes I guess workarounds to problems such as this are possible, but what is actually gained for users of this forum by deliberately creating the problem in the first place?

If a thread is no longer relevant to anyone, it presumably won't be replied to anyway, so the lock is proved unnecessary, but where a thread is still found useful enough to reply to by someone, then the lock is proved counterproductive.

So the best that can be hoped for from thread locking is that it adds no value to the forum. In every other case, it diminishes value.

Re: Thread Locking

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 26 Nov 2023 23:03:08 GMT

Yes, from a Community member point of view, there is no benefit. But, what you don't see is all of the behind the scenes hours that your volunteer moderators spend dealing with irrelevant posts to old threads that we then have to move (along with the new replies) to create a new topic in the correct forum. It's wonderful that people use the Search functionality (recommended!) to find related topics before posting... but new-ish people don't really understand that an issue they're posting about is not actually related to a similar issue from an old release.

As Barry said, folks can easily start a new thread that references the old one and moderators can in one (awkward) step back-merge that entire thread into the old topic and then unlock it.... which is way less work than for us to move, one by one, new replies that really belong somewhere else.

Re: Thread Locking

Paul King — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 00:26:28 GMT

Thanks Karl

I run a forum myself for architects in New Zealand, so need to deal with the same thing on occasion - (albeit on a much smaller scale with only 700 subscribers).

It sounds like the process may be more laborious to administer on this forum software. (mine is based on Discourse)

All I normally need to do when shifting material to a new thread is scroll down and mark the point at which the topic changed sufficiently to justify shifting, supply a new topic header and let the forum software do the rest, migrating all subsequent replies.

I suppose complexity ensues when some replies are to one topic, some to the other - but that applies irrespective of thread age when users go off topic.

If thread locking is intended as a way to prevent accidental off topic replies, then using reply frequency to a topic as a proxy for relevance is arguably using a pretty blunt instrument - at least as likely to prevent on-topic replies as off-topic replies. And by cutting up what would otherwise be continuous thread, you trigger increased odds of redundancy, with responses found on first thread spontaneously effectively arising again on second thread from people who might not have encountered or remember the first thread.

Re: Thread Locking

Karl Ottenstein — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 03:10:38 GMT

@Paul King wrote:

All I normally need to do when shifting material to a new thread is scroll down and mark the point at which the topic changed sufficiently to justify shifting, supply a new topic header and let the forum software do the rest, migrating all subsequent replies.

That's all we had to do in the previous platform called 'archicad-talk' (PHP-based, but becoming unsupportable apparently... and Graphisoft then chose to use Khoros rather than Discourse for some reason.) Here, there is an option to move a post and its replies... which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. But if the next person responding to the woken up topic responds to the OP, then that's a new subthread that has to be moved separately. Etc.

As Barry noted, this process shouldn't break up threads at all. If someone finds the original thread and cannot respond, the hope is that they post as he suggested by mentioning the thread in their post so that a moderator can then unlock the original thread and merge things so that it is all together as the poster had wished.

I do feel that nothing newer than 3 years or so (covering the 2 supported releases of Archicad) should be locked. But I was outvoted. 🤐