Forum Clean Up??

[Serendipity]

Old posts every now and then being brought back to the front due to a comments being made.

What worries me is that a lot of this information is now irrelevant as things have drastically changed within the last 12 months. It can be confusing and possibly send peoples minds in the wrong direction.

Some thread posts go back as far as February 2006 – immigration information and advice that is really of no use anymore or applicable to today’s status, we wish it was but that is not the case - sure we would all love our PR visa's being in less than 1 year

My suggestion to the hosts is a Forum Clean up, especially under the Immigration Subforums, that’s where most of us spend our time sourcing information and guidance.

Yes the “old questions†might raise there heads again but at least the “New replies†will be relevant for today.

Any comments Forumites?

[Spider]

i fully agree

[AandJ]

Could even clean up topics under General...maybe those older than 12 months...

[Jordy]

Thanks for the suggestion. It is worth considering.

I have moved this to a different thread.

[Cramer]

Especially the Pinned Stuff, Lots of outdated stuff there and unless you are a Forum Addict you might not know the difference.

[IamInACT]

agreeded, clean up is in order

[Jordy]

I have given this suggestion some thought and while unpinning some pinned topics is easy, it is not so easy to remove outdated info. There are more than 5600 threads (49185 posts) in the Immigration General subforum and more than 4400 threads (43577 posts) in the Immigration application subforum. And that is only 2 of the 80 subforums that we have on the forum which has now surpassed 200 000 posts in total.

How does one decide which information is still worth while keeping and which is not? It would be impossible to expect the hosts to go through 10 000 threads. If you are concerned that "a lot of this information is now irrelevant as things have drastically changed within the last 12 months" how do you propose we check whether the info is valid or not?

So then another alternative is to close say the oldest 8000 threads in those two subforums. But even though that would take an enormous amount of time, it wouldnt stop people from reading them getting outdated info.

If we simply deleted the oldest 8000 threads, a huge amount of good info would lost.

[Biker]

I'm not in favour of a clean up.

Like any information out there on the web it is up to the reader to determine the validity of the information. Not only will you loose some other valuable information, but not every sub-posting to any topic necessarily relates to the validity rule.

I also think it is hugely unfair to expect the moderators to go through the thousands of posts to check. Remember this is a 'free' service and I have not yet came across any forum on the internet that actually deletes old postings.

My 2 cents worth.

[Mara]

I have to agree with Jordy...anything on the internet is "user beware", you need to check your facts. When we see that someone has uprooted an old post and replied to it, we are usually pretty good at pointing out the error of their ways.

So sorry guys, I think everyone will just have to keep their eyes open.

[Serendipity]

Hi Hosts and Forumites

I did not realise that it was so involved and now understand completely for your reasons against doing it, makes sense.

My apologies, this has just made me realise what actually goes into these forums.

Biker your comment is also very valid.

Everything with a pinch of salt, so to say.

Thanks guys and girls for your hard work

[Riekie]

There might be ways to prune away some of the stuff - we'll certainly consider some of it to tidy things up a bit. We'll give it a think and I'm sure we'll be able to come up with something workable.

Immigration rules change so often - and even the costs of a container etc, so it is very important that ppl read the most recent posts first and check the date a post was made before accepting it as gospel. General advice from personal experiences such as adjusting, saying goodbye etc always remain valid, no matter how old. I guess for ppl looking for the latest facts, the search function would be a good start, searching for results in "most recent" order instead of "most applicable". As far as visa info goes, I'd double check everything with the DIAC website too in any event.

Thanks for the suggestion guys - we'll look into it!

[Cramer]

I have given this suggestion some thought and while unpinning some pinned topics is easy, it is not so easy to remove outdated info. There are more than 5600 threads (49185 posts) in the Immigration General subforum and more than 4400 threads (43577 posts) in the Immigration application subforum. And that is only 2 of the 80 subforums that we have on the forum which has now surpassed 200 000 posts in total.

How does one decide which information is still worth while keeping and which is not? It would be impossible to expect the hosts to go through 10 000 threads. If you are concerned that "a lot of this information is now irrelevant as things have drastically changed within the last 12 months" how do you propose we check whether the info is valid or not?

So then another alternative is to close say the oldest 8000 threads in those two subforums. But even though that would take an enormous amount of time, it wouldnt stop people from reading them getting outdated info.

If we simply deleted the oldest 8000 threads, a huge amount of good info would lost.

A logistical Nightmare...