[MrBS]

For the high traffic forums (like Software/OS X) please auto-lock topics that haven't been posted to in a week. It's really annoying having threads over a year old being bumped to the top of the board. On slower moving boards (like Developer) maybe a month would be better. But please do something.

If people really want to talk about a thread that noone has thought worthy of responding to for over a week, they can easily start a new topic with a link to the thread.

The thread linked to above should be a new thread.
Title: CaffineSoft out of buisness!
CaffineSoft, maker of PixelEnhance (discussed in this thread) is no longer there!

This makes the board a lot nicer to read than having a year old topic dredged up, many people don't notice the dates and think the debate/discussion is current, and then start responding to people who haven't touched the subject in months.

~BS

[Ozmodiar]

Bumping old threads is superior to the redundancy of multiple threads talking about the same thing.

When Apple updates an iApp, by the end of the day the Software forum has several hundred threads about the same thing. It makes more sense to just find an older thread about the topic and bump it to the top with new information.

[OwlBoy]

I agree, if there is a perfectly good thread on one topic, I think its fine to bunp it to continue discussion.

Edit: ok not just bump as in "bump!" but to actually say something in the post.

Though I don't think we should lock old ones just cuz of a few "bump!"ers.

-Owl

[CharlesS]

bump

[pliny]

I think having some "perpetual" or "other word for long term or infinite" threads might help ease some of the congestion. There are multiple threads across the forums addressing similar if not the same topic. This is ok because some people only populate some forums, imo, but at least with some of the more popular topics, it could help. Some ideas,

Perpetual Mac on Intel (Hardware)
Perpetual Camino
Perpetual Safari
Perpetual "whatever"

This of course would probably be a big departure from MacNN practice which at least since I've been reading hasn't had these sorts of things, but instead relies on user interest.

As far as locking +1 year old threads or +1 month I'd say no.

[Cipher13]

Locking old threads? That's just silly... how often to year old threads get bumped? Not that often.

Can't you just look at the date? Maybe highlight part of the thread - the title, the date, whatever - if it's been more than a month since said thread has been posted in.