at what point does an old chow post become too old to bother with??

[MarkG]

at what point is the information or opinion too out of date?? more than 5 years?? more than 3 years??

[sueatmo]

I'd say if an old post pops to the top, it is relevant to someone. If the thread consists of reviews of a TV show or a restaurant that no longer exists, then the thread isn't relevant, particularly if it isn't drawing any comments. But are you implying that an older thread is never worth resurrecting? Or that the mods should close older threads after a certain time? Why not let the forum participants decide what is relevant by allowing them to resurrect threads when they are curious enough about a topic?

[Samalicious]

No one is implying anything.

[BobB]

Sue, I agree with your post overall, but not the first sentence. Often a thread with some temporal context to it gets inadvertently resurrected by someone who simply didn't notice the date of the original (or most recent) post. I've been guilty of this myself, more than once.

One example that comes immediately to mind: there was a thread complaining that a particular restaurant didn't take credit cards. Someone responded that they DID take them - which was true at that time, but not five years earlier when the original posts were made.

[sueatmo]

I suppose I should have added the phrase, "In general. . . " in the first sentence. :- )

[RB Hound]

Precisely why responding a a thread older than 6 months (or a year, or even 3 months) should pop up a warning message: "Are you SURE you want to respond to an x-month old message?" I don't think TPTB favor doing this, though.

[sunshine842]

but it's not entirely useless -- if someone were researching that restaurant and came across the old post, the information that they DO take cards might be very valuable!

The ones that are slightly amusing are the "I'm going to be in (insert city) next week, where should I eat?" Someone crafts this long, loving response, and in a few hours someone posts "um, nice post, but did you realize that the poster has been HOME for three years?" Facepalm for sure.

[Karl S]

Yes, it would be nice if there was a function that warned before you submit: "The last comment to this post is over [a year] old" and "The original post is over [a year] old"

[sunshine842]

it depends on the topic...a great recipe thread can more or less live forever...but something related to current food news or a restaurant can be out of date within weeks.

[HillJ]

I agree with you sunshine842. The age of an OP really has to do with the specific topic and the volume of CH board topics are so large now how do you even begin to decide which recipes are out of date. Could you imagine if the boards weren't separated by type of discussion...some gems even on regional boards pop to the surface and provide loads of useful info...even dated...because the contents of an entire thread is often the valuable aspect.

[sunshine842]

Yes -- I've seen a couple of posts pop up where the OP was long since past its sell-by, but there was some sub-discussion buried deep in the thread that was relevant and timely and interesting.

There have also been a few that were dormant for a very long time, but someone has posted some new tidbit of information that has brought the whole thing back to life.

[calliope_nh]

I have done this after a search lead to discovery of a thread.