Some older "For Sale" ads now locked

hi all,

I have locked some older "For Sale" ads that people were replying to. A few posters mentioned these threads seemed to be defunct so there was no point in keeping the topics active. Drop me a PM if you wish to re-open a particular thread.

I'm not sure if the subject can be changed on a thread after it's posted, but if an item is sold could you change the thread to indicate this? Cheers! I'm guilty of not flagging some of my own threads in this way :gramps:

John

I help run and maintain a forum (powered by phpBB) which has a large For Sale section to it and I recall a similar situation arising a number of years ago with users dragging up really old post/ads.

Within the Forum Control Panel (Forums Section) the Admin person could set up a preference whereby a post would have a predetermined shelf life. How this works, is that following the last activity on a post a clock is set running and if there is no activity after the predetermined number of days, say, 30, 60, or 90, the post automatically deletes itself. It is then up to the user to re-list their ad if they wish. This can be done for individual forum sections such as the For Sale section and doesn't have to apply to the forum as a whole.

It is now running very successfully on the forum I help out with for a number of years.

I am sure a similar system could be set up to be operated on this forum, a secondary bonus is that It also is a good tool to assist with the management of server space.

skynotes wrote: I'm not sure if the subject can be changed on a thread after it's posted, but if an item is sold could you change the thread to indicate this? Cheers! I'm guilty of not flagging some of my own threads in this way :gramps:

I usually do that every week or so John. I've not gone back as far as some of the old posts that got dug up recently though.

The idea of locking old posts is a good one though. I'll try and lock everything older than 6 months for a start

Sounds good to me Albert.

And, as far as I am aware, the original poster of a post/thread CAN edit the subject line at any time: so, the word 'SOLD!' can be added in the title when a transaction has been completed.

Seanie.

There doesn't seem to be a way to bulk lock threads unfortunately, only to bulk delete them. I don't want to do that as it's useful to be able to search to get guide prices for things etc.

The original poster of a thread can edit the subject line as Seanie says, and we'd encourage people to do that. Otherwise please at least add a post saying that the items were sold and a moderator will come along and edit the subject for you later.

Cheers,
~Al