e.g.: My old thread: Setup and test 4.1 smtp relay? is still open… But i can’t continues this thread and must open a new one: Setup smtp relay?
What is the advantage of closing thread automatically? I don’t see any and certainly not at this much too short chosen time. (maybe close all thread until one year is okay)
The advantage is that people don’t resurrect two-years old threads to discuss new issues inside an old thread, because “it looked similar”, which people did regularly before we added this, which led to an epic support far west where topic titles had nothing to do anymore with the actual issue being discussed 10 posts later
But that limit is a bit low for support issue, in particular specific ones, where it’s hard to find someone able to answer, and harder in the relatively short limit of 15 days… (for instance that’s only 2 week-end, some people have no time for that during week time, and so on)
Couldn’t that limit be raised a bit, for instance to a month ?
Bumped the setting to 30 days
That’s very nice of you, thanks !
30 days are better than 15 days, but IMHO still way too short when it should be about not reactivating very old threads.
It’s still boring!
I get a Question about Yunohost setup with FritzBox "MyFRITZ" dynamic DNS and own Domain CNAME alias via email. Because it’s closed 
Another topic is still valid, but closed in the forum: Paperless-ngx MissingDependencyError: gs - #22
Both are open now.
I guess creating a new topic mentioning the old ones and having them merged if necessary is still less messy than unearthing old and possibly irrelevant stuff…
Then again, if your experience is relevant to others creating a tutorial or some documentation might be the way to go !
I found this discussion, because I was about to open a similar subject. Reading it helped me understand better the reason behind adding this auto-closing feature.
Just to give an example of personal experience, having little time to dedicate to my server’s administration, it can sometimes take me quite a while to implement a suggestion that someone gives me in a thread (because from the moment they answer to when I have time to read the answer and work on the issue, time may fly), and when I finally make time to do so, if I have some follow up to add to the thread, it’s too late. Like I can’t just simply confirm the suggestion worked (and how) and thank the person for it.
So I can imagine other people may have similar issues.
Reading this thread I was wondering if there is a way to give time for people to follow up on threads while dis-incentivizing the thread resurrection tendency.
I don’t know if discourse allows that, but maybe if the user that opened the thread had the possibility to reopen it after it’s been auto-closed (a power that discourse admins/moderators have I believe), maybe that could be a good feature. Since probably if someone opens a thread they know what it’s about, and are less likely to revive old threads unless it makes real sense.
Don’t know what people think of this, if it makes sense.
Otherwise I’m also interested in suggestions on how people manage with the time limitation factor, like the suggestions given by @Aristid.