According to moderators on other CC boards, they lock old threads when the info gets outdated. That does not seem to be the case here. I have gone back and read that thread a few times and everything in it is still current except the few posts about the TV show, and even that can still be watched online. All of the coaching services mentioned are still in business and are still being run by the same people, and even charge about the same rates. And, most of the people that commented are still current on this forum. It makes no sense at all to me. I really donât know what to comment on and what not to anymore. I also donât know when to start a knew thread and when to just resurrect a slightly older one. Some clarification would be helpful.
Thank you @Dusing2 you said it much better than I ever could.
And thanks @bisouu. I know what you mean. It does feel like youâre getting a bad mark from the teacher when you are participating in a thread that then gets closed by the moderator. I definitely didnât mean to comment on a thread that had been closed for whatever reason. It just popped up on my feed this morning and I was just trying to answer the newest questions posed. Still donât understand how you know it is a closed thread that you should not post on, but thatâs ok 
They closed it AFTER you commented⊠@vvnstar so you had no way of knowing as I didnât either.
Not sure what the rule is with old threads but the member who revived that thread was back on the forum this evening and likely saw it closed. She should probably start a new thread if she wants to continue the discussion. I donât think anyone has any objection to that.
RE: not hearingâŠjust a warning. My D received another girlâs rejection letter two years ago. This other girl lived 1000 miles away from us, a total stranger. When I called the school, they did not seem to want to know whose letter we recâd, which made me think that this girl would never have found out her fate. At yet another school, we never recâd any notification, and I had to email the head of the department several times to get an answer. It does happen. Some of these departments are dealing with 1,500 to 2,000 applicantsâŠthere will undoubtedly be errors. If you havenât heard by now, I would say call! You are well within your rights.
*Threads usually get locked when they are resurrected after being dormant for a long time. There is no hard and fast rule; it is a judgement call for the moderators. I can promise you there is no great conspiracy regarding what the content of those threads are. In fact, we usually just look at the dates and rarely read them. It is easy enough to start a new thread on the topic.
In fact, your comments make no sense. If it were that kind of conspiracy, we would be deleting the threads, not just locking them. But instead they are plainly there for archival viewing and for being linked to in a fresh thread, which no one will stop you from initiating. It is just easier and usually more efficacious to do it that way rather than have to read through every older thread to see if it is still applicable to current realities.
I am getting more than a little tired of the sniping and judgmental comments coming from this crowd on the MT forum, especially from a small group of you. I could penalize several of you for commenting on moderation on the public boards, which is clearly a violation of the Terms of Service. But I wonât in this case. But you have drawn my attention, and that is unfortunate. Please clean up your acts and stick to facts, opinions that donât denigrate others, and lose the attitude. You can hate me and/or be mad at me and/or think I am wrong all you want, but this is not the atmosphere that the CC rules are intended to foster. It wonât be tolerated much longer.*
Thank you for the clarification on how and why old threads are closed. I will be more careful when responding to an old thread that has been resurfaced.
I would add that when you do see an older thread that has been resurrected (letâs say 4 months or more without activity), please report it so we can make a decision if it should be closed or left open for further comment. As I say, at 4 months or so it is a total judgment call. Once it gets to be about 8 months or more, it is more likely than not to be closed. But thatâs just my thermometer, other mods might call it a little differently, although we will all be in the same ballpark.
MODERATORâS NOTE: This was my answer to questions about closing the MT thread (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18333822):
"@Dusing2, thanks for the link to the thread. One of the posters put it best:
@Times3 - <<I think it has to do with difference between a thread thatâs been continuously added to for a long time, on a regular basis, versus one that has been moribund for a year or two and then brought back into play.
Pretty sure the moderators arenât hanging around deciding whose opinions are âpopular.â >>
That thread had not been posted in since November, 2013! So a new thread makes sense. If there are any particularly important posts, you could copy and paste them.
One problem with old threads is that some of them werenât moderated, and the current moderators donât have time to go through hundreds of posts to see if there are any TOS violations. Also, new posters tend to assume that posters from 2013 are still on CC, and ask them questions."
Please keep in mind that the Terms of Service prohibit discussion of moderating and forum policies. You can politely ask questions about policies in the âCommunity and Forum Issuesâ Forum.
The thread in question wonât be reopened. Feel free to start a new one, however.
Thanks guysâŠwe will keep our eyes out for the old threads. Hopefully the newbies will figure it out too. When I was new I resurrected old threads all the time not understanding that I should start a new one.
I didnât realize that fallenchemist had posted explanatory notes before I did! I didnât mean to pile it on!
This has been a useful discussion for me (a chronc thread-reviver) so thanks for sharing it! I always thought it was more efficient to add a related comment to an existing thread (like not openng a new milk carton when thereâs already one open) but this helps me see why maybe thatâs not true. Iâll try to turn over a new leaf!
@fallenchemist and @mainelonghorn. Thank you for trying to help me understand about old threads. I certainly wasnât intimating there was anything wrong with closing them. I just was not aware how I was supposed to know not to comment on a thread that had new posts/questions on it from that day. Is there something somewhere I should have seen that says closed, donât post? Just trying to figure it out so I avoid doing it in the future.
I hope this is apparent, but I try very hard to stay out of any unpleasantness on CC. It has been a place of knowledge and comfort for me the last few years and I only wish to pay it forward. I agree that this yearâs comments have gotten quite mean at times and that makes me sad. I hope as offers come in and decisions are made we can celebrate together and move on to helping those next to come . I appreciate all of you in this community and look forward navigating these college years with you.
Actually, @MomCares, I like your milk analogy IF you can imagine that there wasnât a way to tell if the milk had turned by simply smelling but instead had to perform a lab test to know. In that case, you would probably just start a new one if the date was old. Thanks for the example.
@vvnstar, we have to close threads manually, and sometimes we donât happen to see old threads for awhile, either accidentally or because someone reports it. You might not have any way of telling, unless you glance up the thread a few posts and notice a post from 2013. We wonât penalize you for posting on a resurrected thread. Even the person who resurrects the thread is not given a warning, unless we realize he or she is doing it often.
Thanks @MaineLonghorn Itâs good to know we wonât be penalized. I jump right in wanting to help the poster never bothering to look and see how old the thread it. I will do a better job of scrutinizing the dates.
Yes, sometimes people will reply to an OP who started the thread six years ago and disappeared the day after!
And sometimes a person will report a post from years ago, and we will issue a warning before we realize itâs so old!
*And just to be extra clear, @MaineLonghornâ means we issue the warning to the person who posted 6 years ago before we realize the post being reported was so old, not warning the person that reported it. We might send that latter person a note saying âHey, you reported something six years old. Please try to watch the dates.â But thatâs all, unless like she said the person were to keep doing it over and over. Actually I have never seen that exactly, so for me that is only theoretical that someone keeps reporting old posts after being asked to watch for it. As far as warning a member that posted six years (or whatever) ago, I have done that a few times, maybe 3 or 4. Only once did I get a response from the member saying âHuh??!!??â I was definitely embarrassed. *
I think it is the total inconsistency in locking threads that is confusing to everyone, and why we canât figure out when we can and cannot continue to post on older threads.
If a post is old and overlooked by the moderators, then suddenly is brought back to life by a new post are we not allowed to then continue the discussion by commenting just because the thread sat dormant for several moths? Are we to ignore the current post? I really donât understand what should happen in this case when an old thread is suddenly revived.