Strange ... searched 2 hours long, but did not find a way to reopen a closed topic.
There is a gray "setup gear" icon next to the [Closed] label at the bottom, that allows to send a message only to the SYSTEM.
No Reply button
No "Reopen" button
I'm asking this for both cases:
topics opened originally by me, and (to report progress or continue conversation,)
for "foreign" topics I'd like to add something later to. (e.g. To add a solution.)
What I really do not understand:
I can see topics with posts older than 2 years, yet opened,
but the system auto-closed mine after 60 day totally.
We decided to auto close threads after a set period for the very reason that we were getting responses to very old posts that were no longer relevant as either the fix had be found or applied to later versions or were actually a new topic just attached to an old thread. However it doesn't get applied retrospectively to posts so those created prior to when it was turned on are indeed still open - unless someone goes through and closes them all manually.
it costs nothing to open a new thread with a link to an old one - or as I said just ping us and we can re-open it for you.
As Dave has said - we can always add a link to the locked thread to the new thread for you, just send a PM to, or mention @moderators for help with problems like this.
is an extra trouble for both you guys and the user.
Your forum system is awesome! Really. I have no idea, if it's built by you, or an external company, but I love it. Except this one think. IMHO the concept of opening new and new and new topics is like a bug/ticket system. Not a forum with information and experience-exchange, where you can follow the evolvement of a problem / solution even years back. (The scroll system is cool too, so no need to keep topics short.)
Create a [Re-open topic] button at the bottom (which would NOT work immediatelly, but would popup a msg: The moderators have been informed and will decide shortly if this topic can be reopened.
Create an [Open a new topic pointing to this old one]
The popup window would explain:
This is the recommended instant method to "re-open" a topic. The moderators can still merge your new topic with this one later.
Of course you would get a notification about both cases.
This would :
automate the whole process
ease the life for everyone
Keep those people "here", who would normally give up (not finding a way to replay).
Sorry for the long letter and my poor english.
I hope you find my writing and my ideas as "building critic", not as complain.
I just don't like loosing time ... and wish to save some for others too.
We chose to enable the automatic closing of old topics that have had no activity for 2 months as a direct result of the number of times people would ask a new question tacked onto the end of a very old topic that was barely related.
The general etiquette for this forum, and many others based on this Discourse platform, is to close off old discussions and encourage new topics to be started.
I don't know if discourse provides the options you suggest. I can certainly see a benefit to having a system message at the bottom of a closed topic that helps the user start a new topic with one click. I will dig into the settings to see if such a thing is possible.
Doesn't that already exists?
You could start a new thread, and send an alert via the flag with a request that would be picked up by the moderators.
I don't think there is a way to do that from the locked thread, but I'll take a look.
Also worth bearing in mind that none of us get paid to manage the forum or respond to people. This is all free time. Free discussion forums are not 24x7 support. If you have a need for that, I'm sure that there are people on the forum who would sell it to you.
Generally, this is an incredibly open, friendly and helpful forum with people being patient. I can only think of a couple of times anyone got impatient waiting for a response.
Hmmm....
I've never would have imagine that. That changes many things.
And personally I'm not very happy about it, since I've seen during the last 20 years many times a good project going down because relying on outside services, when those changing things...
Still, you guys misunderstood me, if you think my goal was to KNOW about how to do this alone, but rather make it possible for big mass to make life easier.
Instead of enlarging this topic further,
please open a ticket at discourse development forum
.. and ask them to make it happen!
You guys, as "main moderators of Node-red", should have 100x bigger influence than a single foreign person alone.
And drop a link here about it too, so we can follow...
But we don't want users reopening old, out of date topics for all the reasons we've describe why we enabled the 60 day inactivity close.
You are the first person to ask about this who has not been satisfied with the response of either flag it so an admin can help, or just start a new topic, linking to the old.
Thank you for the feedback, but it isn't something I'm going to spend my time on raising with Discourse.
i think if a post is older that a year it does show ..
only in the case that its the current year it shows the day month / days / minutes format
confirm with an older thread
I somewhat agree with @PizzaProgram , on the disadvantage of automatically closing a subject after XX days.
Especially for those who share a flow, a node or a project.
We know there is always something to add (our women can testify ), or a correction etc.
Closing on a "hard coded condition" like that seems not so flexible. If it would be after xx time of inactivity, it could be better understood and maybe accepted. Anyway I personally see no benefit in closing anything at any time, what is the benefit in closing? Is it a cost issue? A price plan depending on nbr of open topics???
Edit: I see now I'm too late to the discussions, you have already had the debate about the stuff so forget my comments, they are too late even though I still stand for my words & opinion
That is exactly what happens now.
Topics will remain open as long as they are active (unless it's closed for a particular reason by a moderator).
A topic will remain open 2 months after the last reply, or 2 weeks after a topic is marked as resolved.
We have carefully considered this, and it's unlikely that this policy will change, for reasons of good housekeeping.
Yes, it happens "now". This is exactly what I think is the problem.
Today I've tried to replay to an other topic and after a page refresh I could NOT. Did not understand, because a week ago, when I opened a new TAB in firefox it was a new topic.
But I had to realize "9 Okt" is 61 days, so I had to first send a "Flag" and wait 4 hours to be able to replay.
So "auto closing" is OK ! If it would be 1.5 - 2 years. Not 2 month!
< OFF >
You guys made a survey a year ago:
And it proved the obvious:
75% of the users here are using NodeRed for Home-automation! And 50+ % for personal use.
Who has so much time in the world dealing with personal project the whole year long continuously?
In my (poor) country where I live, home automation is a luxury. People with high skills maybe have 1-2 weeks around crystmas, and if they are lucky, than + 1-2 week around summer, and that's it.
Can you check the statistics?
How often are (mostly inactive) users are logging in?
( My guess is : 85% of users log in a few times during 2 weeks, and than disappear for 1-2 year.)
How many times is a login triggered within 1 week >> if an inactive user gets an email about a topic they were interested?
( My guess is: more than 65%)
), or a correction etc.