This topic

Do Old Threads Get Removed?

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:23:22 GMT

I have been a member of these forums since 2010, and quite a few years ago I started keeping the latest email notification of a new post, (deleting the previous one), for each thread that I was in, for reference in the future.

As you can imagine, that is quite a few emails - even though they were neatly filed in a mail folder. I have finally decided to do a bit of housekeeping and tried following the links in some of those emails to re-visit the threads.

However, this is what I see for many of those threads now:

I would say that it is threads between 2-3 years old and older that show this.

Does BT Community Forums automatically delete, (or at least remove from public view), threads based on their age?

Re: Do Old Threads Get Removed?

imjolly — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:33:41 GMT

Archived so no longer public access

Re: Do Old Threads Get Removed?

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 16:50:42 GMT

@imjolly

Thanks for the reply.

I'm guessing that this is an automatic process, based on the time since the last post in the thread?

Do you know what the criteria for archiving is, (eg 24 months since last posting)?

Re: Do Old Threads Get Removed?

gg30340 — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 19:31:07 GMT

The forum moderators were/are in the process of archiving threads that are 18 months old.

It is a two stage process where threads that are older than 18 months will be moved into an archive section. There is not an archive board that forum members can view but the threads can still found and read using the search facility.

Once in that section any threads not attracting any views will be moved into a permanent archive which is not accessible by any forum members.

Re: Do Old Threads Get Removed?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:39:43 GMT

@gg30340

Thanks for the reply and info.

I need to do a lot of pruning of my BT Community Forums email folder! 😀

As I said in my OP, I have been a member of these forums since 2010, so even only keeping the email linking to the last post in each thread I have participated in has created a large folder!

I started doing this at the beginning because the site search engine wasn't very good in the early days, (IMHO). Since I retired a couple of years ago I have joined many more forums, but kept up the same "habit".

I'm definitely a creature of habit 😉

I have just been trying this site's Search Engine out with a few test searches. It certainly seems to be a lot better at finding relevant posts than I remember, (and significantly better than some other forums that I'm a member of!) - but it was 13 years ago that I probably last tried it! - so I might well abandon keeping the thread notification emails completely. 🤔

Re: Do Old Threads Get Removed?

gg30340 — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:54:10 GMT

If you are specifically looking for your own previous posts you just need to click on your username then view profile and it will bring up all the ones that you can still access.