archiving-posts-is-a-new-faq-feature

['76mintgrün'02]

I've tried asking questions in the Site Problems, Suggestions, and Questions forum, but it's been three months without a response and this seems like a topic that is worthy of discussion; so I'm starting a thread, hoping to get a better understanding of what's going on.  https://www.bmw2002faq.com/forums/topic/320498-archived-threads/

 

So far, I've learned that Archived threads cannot be added to and posts made in them cannot be edited.  

 

Also,  Archived threads no longer come up using the Search function; even if you type in the complete title.

 

 

I looked back at my personal content history and 89 of the first 92 threads I started have been Archived.  The three that remained have survived due to posts being made within the past five years.  Yesterday, I checked the content history of @Mike Self, @Conserv, @TobyB and @AceAndrew and their content has suffered the same fate.

 

Apparently, the history of the FAQ is being locked away day by day with a five-year rolling cut-off date that is currently happening in March, 2018.  

 

I've always felt like we are contributing to a valuable knowledge base and suddenly, fifteen of the past twenty-one years have been removed from the search results.  

 

This is a significant change in FAQ policy and I'd like to know why it is being done.  

 

If anyone has any insights (or concerns) please share them.

 

Tom

 

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by '76mintgrün'02
thread title changed back to "archiving-posts-is-a-new-faq-feature"

[visionaut]

Thanks, Tom. It sure doesn’t make a lot of sense to leave 17+ years of  ‘historical’ content out of search - that’s often where THE best answers are. And it leaves out the contributions of many prior knowledgeable FAQers…
 

Oddly, regarding Attachments I have posted, which I can find under my Account page, I can go all the way back (2006)…

 

It’s my understanding that previously, I could search all the way back, and post in those oldest threads. I added posts to the oldest ‘Off Topic’ threads early last fall.

 

If it’s a Database size thing, then it’d be better to divide Forum Content into archived and current, but provide searching of both portions.. or implement Search by Forum, or some other divisible, so ALL Frequently Asked Questions are searchable.

 

 

['76mintgrün'02]

2 minutes ago, visionaut said:

Oddly, regarding Attachments I have posted, which I can find under my Account page, I can go all the way back (2006)…

 

It’s my understanding that previously, I could search all the way back, and post in those oldest threads. I added posts to the oldest ‘Off Topic’ threads early last fall.

 

I can still see all of my old threads when I go to my profile page and click on "see my activity" and then scroll down the left side and click on "topics".  Then, the list comes up showing them in chronological order, based on the ones most recently posted in. 

 

I did the same thing to the other members mentioned above and the results were consistent.  It's not that the information completely disappeared, but it will NOT appear within search results; which makes it virtually invisible.

 

The old posts you've bumped are searchable, but the ones that have not been added to since March 2018 are gone now.

 

11 minutes ago, visionaut said:

If it’s a Database size thing, then it’d be better to divide Forum Content into archived and current, but provide searching of both portions.. or implement Search by Forum, or some other divisible, so ALL Frequently Asked Questions are searchable.

 

I have ZERO understanding of how these sites function, but had similar thoughts.  Not being able to post in a thread is one thing, but not being able to find it is another.  A "search Archived posts" option would be helpful.

[steve k.]

This did happen at one of our recent changes.

 

Archiving has been disabled since, but it will take a while to unarchive all posts as we are very large, and it is done as a slow background service.

 

Steve K.

[visionaut]

Tom — I just checked into my other long-standing Car forums to see if they’ve also been ‘archiving’ older content to make it unsearchable too. Nope - I can search all the way back on any of those other forums content. And they’re larger sites.

 

Maybe we’re now the MRFAQ?, - Most Recent Frequently Asked Questions…

 

Boy, I feel bad now telling folks to use the Search feature before they post new Qs… 

[bergie33]

I actually liked being able to go into an old post and update it with more current and often relevant information.  It is a way to limit many posts that contain the same information.

[TobyB]

Quote

 we are very large, and it is done as a slow background service.

 

Thanks, Steve!

I knew more 15 years ago than I do now.

 

I also modified this 'feature' to apply to myself:

Quote

I am very large, and anything that gets done these days is a slow background service.

 

heh

 

t

down to kiloflops

[sd2003]

Hi guys,

 

Is there an FAQ Archive site we can access and  check old post?

 

Thanks

[steve k.]

57 minutes ago, sd2003 said:

Hi guys,

 

Is there an FAQ Archive site we can access and  check old post?

 

Thanks

The posts are all here. From day one. Nothing has been removed. Archiving the posts prevents editing and replying to them. 

 

Steve 

[visionaut]

Any update? Go Indexer Go!!!  Lol

 

If you’re like me, you’re missing the ability to use filtered searches on the full ( >5 years) Forum history content, and can’t wait to have the Great Un-Archiving complete. But it’s obviously a whole gagabyte of threads to re-index, so while we patiently await it’s completion I wanted to share a tip for folks who still might want to search EVERYTHING in the interim.

 

Inside the FAQ Search bar, there’s a pop-up menu. Mostly it’s pre-set to search either “This Topic” to search within a given opened topic thread, or to “This Forum” to search all Threads within the opened Forum. Once clicking and entering your search terms/phrases, you can reset WHERE in 2002FAQ it searches, to focus it on dozens of different FAQ content types and areas. 

 

But it also has selection option of Google, and when set to that option it doesn’t use the FAQs built-in, site managed database indexes. Instead it passes the search to Google, tells Google to limit/focus Search results to this site BUT USE IT’S OWN Search index.  And because the old pages/topics are still online in their current Archived state, it works across the whole forum content history! 

 

While the results aren’t close in precision like you can get using the built-in filterable meta-data based Search, it’s better than nothing.  So you can still find your old stuff and those nuggets of wisdom you vaguely remember from the near-distant past in the interim.  So I wanted up pass it along… Hope it’s helpful!

 

I did have one further question — related to locking old threads. I’m trying to understand the need.

 

In my thinking there’s no harm to allowing new posts in old threads. (We used to encourage it vs starting yet another new thread on the same topic), And no harm to letting folks edit their own old posts, if they want to do that for some reason. I guess the only thing we don’t want is folks just going into full Delete everything mode, especially if they can delete whole threads taking everything away including other’s content with it.

 

Is that occurring? Or what it’s for? Or do I grok it wrong.  I guess it really doesn’t matter now since it’s going away, but it got me thinking - and you know that’s not always a good thing…   ;p

 

Tom-too

['76mintgrün'02]

Thank you for the Google information, Tom.  I used that method today to bring up posts I'd made about using a double-pivot Suburban rear view mirror.  I got zero hits with the FAQ search, but pulled up four Archived threads using Google.

 

I got this email today.  Unfortunately, there isn't an option for clicking [no] .

 

Hi '76mintgrün'02,

There have been replies to your topic, archiving-posts-is-a-new-faq-feature.

Here's what you wrote:
 

Posted in archiving-posts-is-a-new-faq-feature   I've tried asking questions in the Site Problems, Suggestions, and Questions forum, but it's been three months without a response and this seems like ...

Here's what others said:
 

Posted in archiving-posts-is-a-new-faq-feature   Thanks, Tom. It sure doesn’t make a lot of sense to leave 17+ years of  ‘historical’ content out of search - that’s often where THE best answers are. ... Go to this Post

Posted in archiving-posts-is-a-new-faq-feature   I can still see all of my old threads when I go to my profile page and click on "see my activity" and then scroll down the left side and click on "top... Go to this Post

Posted in archiving-posts-is-a-new-faq-feature   This did happen at one of our recent changes.   Archiving has been disabled since, but it will take a while to unarchive all posts as we are... Go to this Post

Did any of these replies answer your question? There may be more replies than those shown here.

['76mintgrün'02]

IT'S FIXED!

 

UNLOCKED!!

 

EVERYTHING is searchable again!!!

 

Thank you so much for fixing that @steve k..  It warms my heart to have old posts showing up again.  I was afraid they were lost forever.

 

Thank you @visionaut for the behind-the-scenes counseling and search-testing reports.  

 

I'm going to sleep well tonight.

 

Tom