Recently, the timing of auto-closing solved threads has changed from 3 days after the last reply to 6 hours after the last reply. What was the reasoning behind this change?
With only a 6-hour window, there is insufficient time for regulars to:
Clarify or contextualize an accepted solution where additional information would help this Discourse be a better resource
Respond to follow-up questions or concerns an OP raised after marking their thread solved
Asking because just today, saw a couple examples of solved threads fitting the above descriptions. But the threads were auto-closed before I even had a chance to read them, let alone compose a thought-out reply.
If the auto-close window could be expanded to ~24 hours, regulars on this Discourse would have the chance to improve the knowledge available in the thread.
Alternatively, if you think it’s not constructive to enhance an accepted solution or answer follow-up questions an OP posts in a solved thread, please let me know.
I would also like to point out that due to people living all over the planet, much more time is needed so that people living on the other side of the world can have a chance to read and contribute points of view or experiences that may be relevant to the resolved issue.
In addition to the previous points, especially over a weekend, even 24 hours is insufficient. The original three days would be, in my mind, the absolute minimum. A full week would be better — sometimes people get extremely busy in their lives.
Hey folks,
I appreciate the feedback and the good points made here. We were doing a bit of testing and wanted to find an optimal time for closing out resolved threads. I bumped it up to 24 hours, but we can certainly make further adjustments if need be.
As @paddylandau pointed out there’s weekends and even more so holidays like Christmas and New Years and several others which a good portion of the world observe,the 3day/72 hour threshold should be the bare minimum with at least a full week being better imo.
Hey @Norm24, the idea came from a recent meeting of the mods here and it was mostly to prevent resolved posts from being reopened or “necro’d” to encourage starting new topics. It’s purely for topics where the author tagged it as solved so there was a clear resolution given. That all said, we’re certainly open to tweaking it if we find it’s causing more harm than good.