Why was it decided to lock threads after 14 days of no posts? That seems a bit extreme. I do not get on here every day or even every week but sure would like to be able to reply to some older posts. I would recommend at a minimum 30 days. Though I have no problems at all with never locking them. What is the harm with someone posting to an old thread if it is relevant?
I vote for no locking. Feedback is important. That late response might be the answer to the problem.
The change was made due to a rash of spam posts from vendors on extremely old threads. Now, while at first it just seems like a nuisance, keep in mind that we don’t have very much activity here so it’s not uncommon for a single post to generate a full set of digest emails (something like 400 emails). In addition, anyone who’s interacted with the thread will get an email with the full body of the post. All it takes for us is a couple spam reports and the Hotmail/Gmail users we worked so hard to get to the Inbox for will no longer receive our mail and we won’t have much in the way of recourse to restore it.
I’m certainly open to changing the policy, it was literally the quickest thing I could think of since I was heading out of town when I did it. But, that means we’re going to have to increase the delay before emails go out for site activity and people are going to have to start using the Flag Post functionality to prevent spam from going out.
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@codatory Can we do anything with the account creation process to make it harder for spammers to get an account?
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We could require staff approval. Most of the spammers are actual human users, so automated means of detection aren’t going to be very successful.
That is what I just thought of as well. Admin approval of users. If you are willing. I know that would take your time.
I don’t mind doing it, but the reality would be if it’s just me doing them they’re going to be very delayed.
I cannot imagine that there are going to be lots and lots of legitimate registrations. IMO, not locking threads and doing staff approval is the best way.
I have personally wanted to go back and comment on a locked thread but it was not enough to start a new thread without the context of the old.
We get a new registration almost every day, but like I said, I’m fine going with approvals / moderation as long as we can agree on what the criteria is and everyone’s OK with a delay on registrations.
Sounds like we need a few moderators to share the load. I’m willing to help. Who else? 
If it would help, I’m willing
I can help as well. And this text is here to make the post long enough.
I just joined yesterday. But, I’m willing to help if you deem me fit for the task. 
Any updates?
And this text is here to make the post long enough.
Why is this thread requiring admin approval to post to it?
I’m poking at requiring approval for low-trust users rather than straight registration because doing it on the registration side requires us to go through and re-approve all users.
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What indicates a “low trust user”? And why would I be falling into that category now?
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Users with trust level < 2 as defined by Discourse.
Since you have never liked a post, you haven’t made the criteria to reach trust level 2.
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Okay. But liking a post is a pretty silly requirement in my opinion (I realize that is Discourse and not you making that requirement). Seems to me it should be based solely on number of posts made. I have never even noticed the Like button nor even thought to use it.
I have liked a post so will see if I am now “trusted”.
It’s a little silly, but Discourse uses the “like” as a way to influence what goes into the digest and whatnot as well as reducing the reliance on “Thanks” posts which go out to everyone in the thread and serve little more than to clutter up the feed.
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