I'm fully in support of applying the change to the policies we discussed here retroactively. However, I don't see any way to do this in bulk via the web interface. It seems this sort of thing would either need to be done topic by topic for thousands of topics, or else via the command line by someone with SSH access:
Don't really see the harm in letting it do its thing from this point forward.
Re-opening all those posts would be a task that may cost more than it benefits.
The overall solution was accepted for the most part and I would rather not stir that little nest of hornets too much.
I am not suggesting that old topics be reopened if they now meet the revised 6 month criteria, but I am willing to bet that there will be comments regarding the fact that some topics have 4 month limit whilst others have a 6 month limit
who cares really....
I care about the possible adverse comments if users don't understand why some topics have different auto-close periods, but don't care whether the period is 4 months or 6 months. As far as I am concerned there was no need to change it anyway
Perhaps a pinned topic, "Why do some topics auto-close in 4 months and others in 6 months?"
Describe why, link this topic, and lock that one.
Then in 4 months you can unpin it.
Just one idea.
It is just a "transition"
From my understanding the 4 month limit no longer applies to upcoming posts as they will now become 6 month.
Also have not seen a single request to re-open anything since this whole topic exploded.
Unless others have seen any ?
If they havent it would cement my view that it was not such a major issue, but more of a minor one that we took notice of/
We made a change anyway to assist those few that may have been affected.
newbies won't notice the 4 or 6 months would be my bet
It's not the newbies that will comment, more those determined not to like the new (now not so new) forum
yeah, but they can figure it out, don't they ? (ie those who might notice are likely reading this thread)
That is correct. For example, this topic was created before the configuration change, and so has a 4 month topic timer:
https://forum.arduino.cc/t/auto-closing-of-topics/869153/last
This topic will close 4 months after the last reply.
This one was created after the configuration change, so has a 6 month topic timer:
https://forum.arduino.cc/t/cell-browser-obsolete/909660/last
This topic will close 6 months after the last reply.
While we're on the topic of auto-close.
Will it be possible to suppress the notification / indication that there is a new 'activity' in a topic when the auto-close feature closes it? I don't think anybody cares after 4 / 6 months, I definitely don't.
So no 
, no notification in the right top corner (if there is one, not sure) and what else more there might be.
+1 on this.
I think changing the tracking is the only option.
Would be nice if there was an optional automatic drop off time for tracking of threads.
I suggest you should care about activity on old topics because it could be spam or it could be someone posting inappropriately.
fair point
I do care, that is why I open the topic when there is an indication that there is something new. Only to find out that there is a message that it is auto-closed; waste of time.
Would be nice for the system to distinguish between a "CLOSED" post and an "ACTUAL" reply ?
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How do we un-lock old posts?
I want to put answers into stuff that comes up top in google (e.g. how to tell the MPU to enable the magnetometer on this : GY-87 clone (HW-290) Addressing issues )
Can someone bump me up to whatever privs are needed for that? I'll only ever use them to add answers to stuff that has none.