[RFC] Topic Age Warning

[imkingdavid]

I created a MOD for 3.0 that alerts the user when he or she attempts to reply to a topic that is older than a certain threshold, which is defined by the admin in the ACP. I think that such a feature would be helpful for board admins to prevent "necro"-ing extremely old topics. Of course it will have a kill switch and possibly be off by default.

If not implemented I do plan to continue it as a MOD for 3.1 and beyond, time permitting.

Main features:
-Admin sets age threshold in ACP
-Topic "age" can refer to either topic creation date or (default) topic last reply date.
-There are different options that can be taken for old topics:
---Notification is displayed above posting editor and quick reply indicating the topic's approximate age (note that you can specify how specific to be in the ACP) and encouraging the user to look for a newer topic or to begin a new one
---Quick reply can be disabled for old topics (even if replying via full editor is allowed); otherwise, notification is disabled above quick reply.
---Topic can be automatically locked when a user attempts to reply to the old topic
---If topic is set to be locked, quick reply is automatically disabled
-Exempt Users:
---Global/Current forum moderators, and (optionally) topic author, see old topic notification but topic does not lock automatically when exempt.

Some new ideas not present in my MOD
-Ability to specify age threshold or even turn off per forum
-Ability to not apply to stickies and/or announcements which may be present for long periods of time
-Ability to have two thresholds: one to simply display a notification, one to lock the topic
-Visual indication on viewforum.php when topic is beyond threshold (possibly not really necessary because such topics will generally be in the last few pages).

Thoughts? Ideas?

[callumacrae]

It shouldn't be how old the topic is, it should how long since the last post.

+1!

[MichaelC]

It shouldn't be how old the topic is, it should how long since the last post.

+1!

+1

[bonelifer]

+1

[Dr. Deejay]

+2 ( )

[ecwpa]

+1

This is way better than the RFC I suggested.