Forum OpenACS Development: Re: Limitation on length of bind variables

18: Re: Limitation on length of bind variables (response to 17)

Posted by Tom Jackson on 05/10/10 11:39 PM

I'm not sure what is worse: the ability to raise from the dead a thread from 2004, or eliza sahoo's bald faced attempt to promote some Oracle on WinDoze technology, or is it ADO.Net?

Eliza: if you want to attract attention, offer free Oracle or SQL Server licenses.

OpenACS: there should be some limit on reviving these old threads...maybe just reverse posting to blog-order...and maybe some indication that half a decade has passed since the last post?

Another idea: cross-link threads. This would require admin/maintainer input, but you could retire a thread, but keep it linked to current discussion on the same topic. Personally I think the ability to search is enough. Retire threads after a year or so.

In the age of Google, you should make old content harder to access, but still available. Maybe old threads should be rolled into an historical FAQ.

IMHO, the ability to dredge up and abuse old content doesn't help promote current OpenACS software and solutions.

19: old threads are good, don't fix what isn't broken (response to 18)

Posted by Andrew Piskorski on 05/10/10 11:53 PM

Tom, I disagree, the longevity of old content and the ability to easily re-start the conversation even years later is one of the positive features of the OpenACS forums. Good discussion lasts. The gazillion PHP-based forums out there should try to emulate it, not the other way around.

All the OpenACS forums need is a small tweak to make the posting date more prominent; the current hard-to-read grey date color is unwise. Perhaps also distinguish very old posts with some sort of "n years old" message next to the date.

Abuse by spammers is a separate and entirely orthogonal topic.