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In response to this idea from @Ditte, I'd like to know how other communities address necro-posting: people reviving an otherwise "dead" topic.





We used to close a lot of topics to prevent necro-posting, but recently we switched to letting the customer decide where to post and we'll move any posts in ancient topics to a new topic. Closing a topic can look like shutting a door, which isn't very customer friendly.





Guiding users tot the right existing topic


Another relevant issue we often face is topics that are created, while there is a neat thread with questions and answers about the topic or question the user wants to address. Unfortunately, it's not possible to move an initial post to an existing thread. Are there any other communities facing this problem?





It would be a nice (but probably a pretty advanced) solution if you'd see topic suggestions while you are typing. We could provide 'top suggestable' topics via a moderator tag, furthermore it would just be a search query. The easy way: type a certain word and you get suggestions, the smart way: use AI to suggest topics.
Hi @Jurgen I will let other community managers address your main question, but just wanted to note that moving the first post of a thread is possible through control. I know in the past it was not, but it has been possible for some time now, so this should facilitate some of the things you mention.
At TomTom we had a workflow procedure in place to close topics that hadn't seen any activity in 3 months. That usually coincided with software releases etc. If users would like to revive a topic, they'd simply start a new one :)


This strategy is something we'll put in place here at Sonos as well. I do still hope that InSided will come up with an automated system that would allow us to save that time. :)





Best,


Ditte
What we've found is that closing topics too soon - just because we thought the discussion was over - makes users dissatisfied. So a three month grace period may be fine and it would be nice to be able to automate this.





Our argument for keeping topics open:


We want to set the bar for users to post as low as possible.


We'd rather have users respond to a topic than to leave the page.


A very old topic may rank high in Google, which causes users to land there.


Users may be too impatient, unaware that they can or simply unwilling to start a new topic on the same subject.
Seeing I just saw the mother of all necro posting: https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/mixed-mac-pc-use-338 , I'm eager to get a manageable solution in place. :D





Maybe a solution could be to add a line with a link to creating a new topic in the "This topic has been closed for comments" box, when topics are locked?





Best,


Ditte
Hi @Ditte, that’s exactly what we’ve done! Great minds think alike 😃
Thanks, @Jurgen for the help today! If anyone else is looking for the phrase to change the topic closed message, this is the one you're looking for:


" topic.closed.info_message "


If like me you can't find it, it's easy to add yourself:


Go to Phrases under General Setting, add a new one like this:











And you're done!

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