This topic will close a month after the last reply. WHY? WHAT VALUE?

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Description of the issue:
Sys Admins of Forums across the web play copycat and all just routinely AUTO-CLOSE forum topics after X interval, and X is way too short.

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.

  1. Search threads in Forum to see if the problem you are seeking help for has already been posted and commented upon
  2. You may find there are one or more instances of threads whose titles indicate YES, this is the same issue I am seeking help with.
  3. Click on such thread title.
  4. Reading down the thread you see “Yes, this is exactly the problem I’ve been having” and “Okay, i am seeing suggestions and replies that either yes that solves it or no that hasn’t solved it”
  5. You keep scrolling down looking for most current comments hoping that eventually you come across a SOLVE that others validate as “works for me too!”, in which case the whole forum system has done its exact job perfectly
  6. However 9 times out of 10 you are getting down to the bottom and out of the blue a LOCKED ICON and:

CLOSED ON MAR 31 (* or whatever actual date)
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

Actual Result (gifs and screenshots are welcome!):
n/a

Expected result:
The expected result is LEAVE THE damn THREAD OPEN for a whole year.

Reproduces how often:
Every day

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):
n/a

Additional Information:
I’m a UX designer and this has to be one of the most consistently frustrating and non-user-friendly problems on the web. Though it makes sense to auto-close a thread if no comments replies in one year, I cannot see a good use case rationale for the
need to auto close threads after merely 1-2 months of no activity. To me this is typical copycat internet behavior from SYS ADMINS:
Usually it is always Google who starts this kind of non-useful practice, and they are one of the most illogical & stealthy companies that operates period, you can never get an actual answer from them… But then like clockwork, if GOOGLE starts some nonsense like this “AUTO-CLOSE THREADS”, then SYS-ADMINS all across the web play copy-cat without questioning, without analysis, they all take this really dumbed-down assumption that “If Google does it, it must be best practices”.

No, it is not best practices. The value of keeping threads open, particularly for ongoing problems that generate tons of duplicative threads are many:
(1) Consolidation of topic focus
(2) the people who have initially reported a problem in a new thread + the people who respond to those problems are almost always the most informed people about new answers either adding to, providing value, or providing no value. And most people choose EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS OF NEW REPLIES. The value here is that the most well informed people on the topic get notified and she or he, by replying, can let OTHERS know whether the new post solves a problem that’s been ongoing, or whether it adds no new value. In this way, people who are FOLLOWING a thread because their problem or issue hasn’t been solved yet can bypass having to check 100 new threads on the matter and instead go to one thread where the aggregated knowledge exists.

But of course this comment will go nowhere and will not induce any policy changes with BRAVE sys admins for forums. Why? Because GOOGLE still locks threads after several weeks of no activity, and they must be right!

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Does anyone know the functional logic of this policy and practice?

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The average forum does close after no response. First off, if you have issues that need attention from Brave you’re supposed to create a Ticket, such as at https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360001302431

From there you can use the dropdown box to choose topics and make sure you submit the proper information.

People don’t do this. Seriously, go search about India or unsupported region and you’ll see over 100 people duplicated the same crap. If they had taken the time to look first, they wouldn’t make posts. This happens in regards to everything and Brave Community gets bloated.

It’s assumed if you don’t check back in that time, the issue is fixed or you’ve moved on. It’s possible that updates were put out or anything else which would play a part in what answers a person can give you as well.

Why? What good would it do for 99.9% of these posts to stay open for a year? People often fail to select a Solution with someone does help them, duplicate posts regardless, etc. Keeping Topic open longer means having more things to have to try to sort through when helping people. Explain to me how you think having something open a year is going to be of any help?

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And to give examples of how people just don’t check for related Topics but instead just make their own…

Then let’s break to something else…ummm, Brave Rewards perhaps?

That list really does go on for a very long time. We created things like my FAQ that, as far as I know, is still actually pinned on Rewards if people look for it. Link is -Retired- PSA: User FAQ - Support & Answers

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This is a poor User Experience design issue – and it’s rampant everywhere. Reddit has one of the worst. If I’m not mistaken either XDA or Quora does input tracking for all new threads and will not let the new thread post to server until user first clicks on threads that are extremely similar in content.

While it’s true that casual users of the web so often have entitlement and instant gratification expectations such that they won’t even both to run a search, I contend that applying a much smarter workflow without visually bombarding people with densely tight layouts of forums and threads and headers and columns would result in people being really surprised how easy it was for them to find the answer or topic they were looking for. Unfortunately the vast bulk of UX is just derivative and follow the leader formats and display methods vs based on a full psychological profiling of how to give people near-instant gratification using a streamlined screenflow. That’s assuming the question has already been posed and answered (vs multiple threads all shut down before answers are arrived at.

Maybe as part of the automation, the system notifies the Original Poster saying “this thread is scheduled to auto-close in 3 days. Do you think it should be closed or given more time?”

I also agree with @ Go-go_duck’s argumentation re locked threads bloating up the user experience.

Sorry to say but most people have never experienced excellence in UX Design. Almost every workflow mechanism on the web is rubber-stamp copied, like i said, just because Google or Apple did something X way, quickly adopted by everyone else. Like collapsing threads at some magic pixel number requiring one to continue to click “MORE” to read a full progression; that one might have been Zuck in his endless quest to dumb down the web beginning with the assumption “people don’t like to read beyond 3 sentences”, thus “auto-collapse”… or its evil cousin “continuous scroll” which still occupies for me the top of the list of dumbass UX choices made because some biz-dev dude proclaimed to know how people think.

One can’t make progress, not when so called expert sites like Stack Overflow use the most arcane rule-sets that greatly stifle the flow of useful information exchange using militaristic conditionals and pretty much a police state enforcement of the most petty rules; effectively screaming at people for adding a comment that should be an Answer instead. In the end, I would solve this for you if you hired me, and it would be unconventional and it would work.

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This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.