http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=418281

I'm fresh from a visit to demerphq's Recently Active Threads page, where I saw a recent reply to a very old thread. I know that SlashDot 'freezes' stories after a while to prevent further replies being added to an old story (it probably also allows them to do some database fiddling so that archived stories are stored differently, but that's a topic of discussion for another beer), and was wondering if it would be useful to add the same feature to Perl Monks.

Having done absolutely no research on this topic, I don't know if it's been discussed before or not.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Do we ever want to freeze threads?
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Dec 30, 2004 at 15:51 UTC
    I don't want to freeze threads. I have found it very useful to go back to very old threads and provide new responses. New responses to old threads of mine have also been really nice.

    Now, I can see wanting to freeze nodes after, say, a month. That should provide similar twiddling capabilities, right?

    Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
    Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
    Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
    Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.

      It's a really tough call .. Originally my thought was to prevent people from replying to a node that was a year or more old. But in addition I suppose it could also be used to prevent someone from modifying (or deleting, as per mt2k) an old node. Then again, updating is OK -- as in, adding something to the bottom.

      It's really not black and white, is it.

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

        What about the Thread Which Shall Not Be Named?

        "There is no shame in being self-taught, only in not trying to learn in the first place." -- Atrus, Myst: The Book of D'ni.

        > Originally my thought was to prevent people from replying to a node that was a year or more old

        Excellent thought talexb!

        Only last week a Perl newbie made a most unfortunate boo boo, making an ill-advised reply to a random old post instead of posting a new one. Sadly, perhaps feeling shamed by the opening blunder, our eager new Perl monk seems to have vanished, perhaps never to return. :-(

        Given that I wrote Necroposting Considered Beneficial (and how far you are behind in the race to Chancellor of the Exchequer :) I felt obliged to make a necropost response to your excellent (and deserving of an upvote!) discussion post of 2004. :)

Re: Do we ever want to freeze threads?
by castaway (Parson) on Dec 30, 2004 at 20:12 UTC
    Just one question: Why?

    You seem to be wanting to discuss something with no particular reason for doing it. If you actually had a good one, to do or not do it, this thread might have a purpose in life ;)

    For the record, I see no reason why we should. (Making old nodes uneditable would be more useful, IMO, I would guess 99% of fiddling goes on with hours/days of creation)

    C.

        Just one question: Why?

      Because I thought it might be useful to prevent someone replying to a node that's several years old. That's because it's very unlikely that anyone's going to see it, and in any case it's probably in the wrong place.

      However this seems like a pretty unpopular idea .. that's fine, I just thought I'd suggest it. Just trying to be creative here.

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

        Because I thought it might be useful to prevent someone replying to a node that's several years old.

        There's nothing wrong with replying to a node that's several years old. Why is a discussion over hashes from two years ago no longer valid today?

        That's because it's very unlikely that anyone's going to see it, and in any case it's probably in the wrong place.

        Of course someone will see it. Discussions are valuable beyond any supposed expiration date. Many people use Search (or even Google) to find very useful old discussions on Perlmonks that help them with current situations. Any contributions made to such threads from the date of creation onward are of value - including the contributions of the person who found it useful.

        This isn't Slashdot. Discussions here are valid without end. There is no reason, in 2005, to be discussing how unfair it is that Kevin Mitnick is still being held in prison in an article posted to Slashdot in 2001. However, an in-depth discussion on map/join from 2003 is certainly worthwhile today. That is the major difference.
Re: Do we ever want to freeze threads?
by TrekNoid (Pilgrim) on Dec 30, 2004 at 18:42 UTC
    If threads are frozen after a year, at least two threads I'm aware of would die an unfair death, in my opinion:

    Name Space and Paco's Thread

    TrekNoid

      True. Perhaps an automatic consideration to freeze after a given period of time?

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

        I don't think we should be freezing threads. There may be extremely rare and special cases for freezing threads, but overall I don't think it helps the readers and posters.
Re: Do we ever want to freeze threads?
by kutsu (Priest) on Dec 30, 2004 at 19:28 UTC

    This was actually my reply to freezing voting after a certain time, but my stance on threads like OT: The WarriorMonks still seems to apply to this discussion.

    Update: Fixed link

    "Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." Ambrose Bierce

Re: Do we ever want to freeze threads?
by petdance (Parson) on Dec 31, 2004 at 22:11 UTC
    Do YOU see any benefit in preventing people from commenting?

    xoxo,
    Andy

      Nope -- the idea has received lots and lots of negative feedback, so at this point I'm sorry I even made the suggestion. It's an idea that no one loves, so it's toast.

      But :) thanks for asking.

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

Re: Do we ever want to freeze threads?
by harangzsolt33 (Chaplain) on Jul 28, 2023 at 10:40 UTC
    This is a very bad idea! If you want to know one of the reasons why StackOverflow sucks it is because they shut down communication by freezing threads that appear to have a solution.

    Just because you think you have a solution to a problem does not mean that years later someone won't come up with a much better or simpler solution. To deny people the ability to add to a thread years later is restricting the free exchange of ideas.

    If your reasoning is that we should freeze old threads, because no one will see them, then why not simply delete the old threads? I mean, why stop there? If nobody is going to see them anyway? Right?

    And what specific problem are we trying to solve with deleting or freezing old threads? Is PerlMonks running out of storage space? Are we afraid that somebody will revive an old thread? Why is that a bad thing? Why shouldn't someone come along and add an idea that no one has thought about?

      Since you've replied to a near 20 year old thread about thread freezing and no thread freezing has occurred, I think it's safe to say that threads aren't going to be freezing any time soon.

      Note that if thread freezing had become a thing, you, nor I would be posting on this frozen thread ;)

      If anything, if the date that the original post could be placed beside it when viewing threads, it would provide a mechanism to allow the reader to decide if they want to delve into an old post that someone recently updated.

        I suspect they only saw this because it was necrobumped a few hours previously.

        If anything, if the date that the original post could be placed beside it when viewing threads, it would provide a mechanism to allow the reader to decide if they want to delve into an old post that someone recently updated.

        When replying we already see this:

        In reply to Re^2: Do we ever want to freeze threads? by stevieb
        in thread Do we ever want to freeze threads? by talexb

        I think just appending a loud (bold, standout colour) "which is more than n years old" to each of those where appropriate should be flag enough.

        Readers (as opposed to commenters) probably don't overly care about the age of posts and if ever they do, the ages are easy to find as it is.


        🦛

        Oh wow. I didn't notice that. When I visit PerlMonks website, I usually just click on the "Recent Threads" link at the top and see what's new. This thread appeared at the very top which is why I assumed it was new.
        This is a very bad idea!

      Sure, sure. My question (from almost twenty years ago) was not seriously about freezing threads, but perhaps flagging them to make it clear that the thread was old. And it's ironic that we're discussing this on a question I posted .. in 2004.

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.

        Yes, it is ironic! Lol I think, maybe if the date of the post was written with red if the thead is over a year old would help avoid this type of mistake. I really thought I'm responding to a current discussion. And it's not the first I have been tricked into responding. Lol Last time I started arguing with someone whose post was about 20 years old. That was hilarious.