Old Post Too Long

There is a posting on the depression site about withdrawal from effexor that is over 600 posts long!!  How silly is that?  Imagine scrolling down through 600 posts?  Surely old posts should be marked as such, and people should start a new question.

[Claire_MHModerator]

Hi, 4Maddie44,

Old discussions are marked with an hourglass symbol -- you should be able to see it in the list of discussions on the Depression forum home page.  

Because even old threads may contain useful info for people who find us via search engines, we don't delete old topics.  I do understand what you're saying about the scrolling, though, and we're always looking for ways to make it easier to find information here. I'll be sure to pass your comments on to our engineers.  Thanks!

Claire

[4Maddie44]

I, and I am sure many others, do not know what the hourglass symbol is for.  Can you not make it clearer that it is an old post.  So many people use these forums.  683 odd posts now on Effexor withdrawal!!

[specialmom]

I think what happens with old posts is it actually often innocent.  If you use a general search engine like google and put in a topic, you pull up a thread related to that topic here at med help.  People will hit it from google and it takes them to that old thread.  I would imagine that they don't look at the date and are just happy to find the info related to their concern.  

When I think of it that way, it is less annoying that the threads are pulled up.  You do have the random folks that seem to be just playing around with their computer and they stumble upon a contentious thread.  The moderators are pretty good at looking at them and determining if they are causing problems and should be closed I've found.  

As a regular, I do glance at the date of a question as you can see it before you open the thread.  I can then either skip it or go ahead and reply to someone as you find people often tack a question onto the end of a long, older thread.  

That's how I handle it anyway.  :>)  

[opus88]

thats what I do too specialmom, I always look for the hourglass symbol...than just open the last 'new' posting that someone recently posted too.
when I reply I tell them to do a NEW post and if they were asking a specific question or reply to someone that started that original thread, I will tell them if that person is still active on MH or not...they can attempt a PM and see if they get a reply..but usually inactive posters are long gone.

Old threads can be helpful to someone doing a google search, but they can also contain very OUTDATED information.
I would really like to see them still available for reading purposes only but shown as CLOSED so new posts can't be added.

they should be followed by the 'post a question' button so new lookers than can start their own thread....

[Emily_MHModerator]

These are all great points, and it's not always an easy balance.  Please know we are forwarding all of these suggestions to our development team.

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback!

Emily

[atthebeach]

we have one on the SA forum, that is 5 years old with 991 posts.
it gets a new post added to it every other week. so much info. is in the old thread and it contains alot of related tags. so when searched it is bound to come up.

[Ben727]

Hi Emily. I think the old threads have great value, especially for new users to see how people post, how people respond, etc. I do often see users telling folks to post a new thread if they are asking for help, but (accidentally) doing so on a old, long thread. I think having an admin like yourself (or a bot) inserting a message at a given age-out or post-number point would be helpful. Also, why not have a bot or an admin put a sticky post at the top of old but popular threads explaining it as such and giving instructions for posting new questions (sorry if you already do this). Finally, one side-request: I would love to be able to use basic tagging for italics, bold, and so on ( for example ). Hopefully your posting software doesn't strip the tags I just did, but either way your dev folks will know what I mean. Thanks!

[Ben727]

LOL, it did strip the tags, even though I tried to disguise them. For italics, I mean: "less than sign" - "letter i" - "greater than sign" and so on. Cheers!

[Emily_MHModerator]

Hi Ben -

Thanks for your suggestions!  I will pass those on to our developers.  

Emily