Lately, newbies (and spambots) seem to be bumping ancient threads as if it were required by law. Is there any way to automatically lock threads that have been dormant for, say, two years, and even if it is possible, would you, the admins, bother?
I'm not so sure locking them is the best idea but IIRC, I've seen some message boards warn you that you're about to reply to a thread that is x years old and ask if you're sure you want to do that.
Oh...I do not know. I kinda like listening to the oldies every now and then. Watching MAC fanatics flop and twitch every time somebody says anything the least bit derogatory about i-thingys never gets old for me....and the PHV threads also are just as fresh and new as when they first started talking about them.....
It's Mac, not MAC. (No, I'm not an Apple fanboy and my only Mac is a crusty G4 Mac Mini that I don't use anymore.)
One reason this came up I'm sure is the guy pic today who posted the SAME reply to 10 threads, all of which were old. I deleted the one in the Gen III forum, but unfortunately AI cannot touch the other ones in the Gen II forum. I sent him a warning to stop since copying and pasting the same post over and over in old threads is IMO hijacking old threads and spamming at a minimum. (I mean come one, it was obvious he was doing those posts only because he is upset/frustrated at Toyota for what he feels is a solution to a problem. Now that's fine, but go about it in a decent manner, especially as a brand new user.) So I'm still waiting to see my report to them about it and for them to clean it up. Only bad thing is now there are replies to him which get lost in the mix a bit...
Actually, there were two spambots that inspired my suggestion (the "car smell" one and the "credit card" one).
There are a few things you need to keep in mind: 1) I'm basically lazy. 2) Sometimes an old threads become pertinent again. 3) Those who dredge up the old threads usually draw attention to themselves and get banned quickly. Then the old thread slips back into obscurity. It's annoying when it happens but in my opinion it happens rarely and inflicts a very minor amount of pain.
Yeah, right. And it's Prii, not Priuses. And it's G3-Two, not G3-II. Sorry.....but they're always gonna be MACs to me. Well...actually they're usually [expletive deleted] MACs, but that comes from long work days of having to put up with graphic artists who wouldn't dream of sullying their fingers by using a PC. Getting back to the ettiquite lesson..... I don't empower Toyota or Apple to dictate how I refer to their products.... I actually used a MAC back when I worked for the NRL. They're a lot like Priuses. Really great. Kinda quirky. Somewhat overpriced. Limited in what you can do with them, but getting better. I own a Harley, so I've already placed a check mark in the "paid too much for a brand name" block on my bucket list. I do thank you sincerely for the correction though!
Actually, this is an important distinction. MAC stands for Media Access Control Address, and Mac is short for Macintosh. PCs (and their networking peripherals) have MAC addresses.
Yes....come to think of it you're right. I forgot about MAC addresses (and I'm a layer I/II guy!). Crap. I guess it'll be [expletive deleted] Mac after all.
I bet your network person hates you. A MAC Address is like 00:00:AB:1E:2C:51 A Mac Address is like 192.168.1.100 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address"]MAC address - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Sounds like "flopping and twitching" to me.... I used both Mac's and PC's at work, depending on which the control software was written for. Our servers were Mac's because they were less susceptible to attack and malware. Some of the PC's were isolated because they were extremely busy controlling machines and we wanted to keep things simple for them - we used sneakernet to get run files to them. At home I use Mac's because I'm basically lazy - like Tony P.
I suspect that in a year or two, when someone is looking for an example of going off topic, they'll resurrect this thread.
I really like the idea of warning a poster that a thread is old before posting a reply. It won't stop spammers or trolls, but often a person does a search, comes up with a thread (or many) and replies without noticing that the last post was years ago. Giving a warning allows the poster to decide before posting if her/his post is really relevant to a very old discussion. It does not prevent anyone from posting and can save an honest poster from embarrassment. I've made this suggestion in the past.
Hmm... I have posted on several old threads, just because I didn't think I should start another thread on the XYZ topic. They are not replies to anyone's question posted in 2007, but to either thank someone for giving step by step instructions on something, or to write my own experience on the matter. Is this not acceptable?
Honestly, if the reply is on topic I very much doubt anyone is going to get too upset. The spamming that Tony refers to is typically where someone searches for every thread they can find with a certain key-word and then posts the exact same thing to all of them. That of course is highly annoying. There are certainly cases where it's perfectly valid to bump an old thread, particularly when it involves providing an update on a previous problem or modification etc. Providing updates on previous issues is generally much welcomed.
