We have a BeNeLux thread in the Civil Aviation forum. The intend was never to have a thread for one year as we don't have so many replies. Now suddenly the thread title is changed from BeNeLux #7 to BeNeLux 2017 and closed, meaning I cannot post the traffic figures for the last remaining months of 2017 (the November 2017 traffic figures have been moved to the 2018 thread, which misses relevance). Why can't we just have a BeNeLux #7 which covers a period of more than 1 year? Moreover, why not close it when it has to many pages? I recalled that the policy used to be to have as less threads as possible.

We do not have a policy to have as less threads as possible. The moderators spent several months debating what was the best way forward after the site upgrade regarding country/state and production threads as under the old site we locked threads at 200 posts and started a new part. Moving forward we decided the most active of those threads would operate on a monthly basis which was only a few and the rest would be on a yearly basis. In our decision making we wanted it to be uniform across everything so even the threads with less activity even if they only got 150-200 posts would be the same as a thread with 900 posts. As we decided this well in to 2017 the transition year was going to be 2018 and this is why you have seen country/state and production threads been closed and new ones started and titles have been edited just to reflect that they were last year's.

Furthermore I do not see why reporting November 2017 traffic figures in the 2018 is a big deal. Its not. In practically most of these threads things from 2017 are carried over to the 2018 thread without an issue being raised.

qf789 wrote:

Furthermore I do not see why reporting November 2017 traffic figures in the 2018 is a big deal. Its not. In practically most of these threads things from 2017 are carried over to the 2018 thread without an issue being raised.

IMHO, this simply doesn't work for some threads.

The classic "Airbus & Boeing sales" and respective delivery threads should not be locked as soon as the calendar ticks over to January of the next year. In a couple of years' time when I want to review 2017 orders, I should only need to look at one thread, not wonder if there are some gems of information in the 2018 thread because the moderators decided to lock the 2017 thread before it needed to be.

In principle I agree with the logic of having yearly discussion threads, but please let's not lock them before the discussion is finished, that just doesn't make sense.

scbriml wrote:

qf789 wrote:

Furthermore I do not see why reporting November 2017 traffic figures in the 2018 is a big deal. Its not. In practically most of these threads things from 2017 are carried over to the 2018 thread without an issue being raised.

IMHO, this simply doesn't work for some threads.

The classic "Airbus & Boeing sales" and respective delivery threads should not be locked as soon as the calendar ticks over to January of the next year. In a couple of years' time when I want to review 2017 orders, I should only need to look at one thread, not wonder if there are some gems of information in the 2018 thread because the moderators decided to lock the 2017 thread before it needed to be.

In principle I agree with the logic of having yearly discussion threads, but please let's not lock them before the discussion is finished, that just doesn't make sense.

I disagree with you, but lets not forget that if there still would be the possibility for moderators to move posts between threads, but there is a reason why we are linking between the threads so that you can browse between threads, especially browsing between the end of an old and the beginning of a new thread is not an issue.

At one point we have to lock threads. we are doing it in this way for the first time, so maybe we are coming to the conclusion that this year we were quite early and are doing it next year a bit later. Let's not forget that we always have to go for the compromise, some users prefer to have neverending ongoing threads, others don't want to browse through more than 5 pages.

As an example have a look here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=595383&p=20071295#p20071295

I have moved some posts between the threads, not a big issue. If you have something you can use the report function, but please allow moderators to see how this works as it is the first time in this way (except Airbus and Boeing orders thread). Anyway thanks for the feedback.

scbriml wrote:

qf789 wrote:

Furthermore I do not see why reporting November 2017 traffic figures in the 2018 is a big deal. Its not. In practically most of these threads things from 2017 are carried over to the 2018 thread without an issue being raised.

IMHO, this simply doesn't work for some threads.

The classic "Airbus & Boeing sales" and respective delivery threads should not be locked as soon as the calendar ticks over to January of the next year. In a couple of years' time when I want to review 2017 orders, I should only need to look at one thread, not wonder if there are some gems of information in the 2018 thread because the moderators decided to lock the 2017 thread before it needed to be.

In principle I agree with the logic of having yearly discussion threads, but please let's not lock them before the discussion is finished, that just doesn't make sense.

I wasn't talking about the Airbus and Boeing Sales order thread which I will add hasn't been locked. I was referring specifically to country and state threads along with production threads. It is also not possible just to lock threads when the discussion has finished as some of these threads the discussion is ongoing. What I might suggest is when a new thread is opened if users want to we can add a summary of what was covered in the previous thread (just email it to us and we will add it in), the summary doesn't have to be everything just some key points. This is what I personally do in the Australian thread and I provided one in the 787 Production thread as that is an interest of mine however its not our role as moderators to do it in every thread we lock. I will also add a summary at the top of a new edition of a rolling thread provides an easy way for users to keep up to date if they haven't followed for a while and its a good tool to refer to at a later date

qf789 wrote:

Furthermore I do not see why reporting November 2017 traffic figures in the 2018 is a big deal. Its not. In practically most of these threads things from 2017 are carried over to the 2018 thread without an issue being raised.

My personal view is that having the figures in the respective years makes it easier if you want to look back. One starts with news about January and ends with news about December of the respective year. Maybe I prefer this as this is the way we work in the financial business, but I would never save 2017 related news under a 2018 header. None of my colleagues would ever find the file needed.

I can understand the new policy, as it would generate a more clarity (and I applaud this move as it makes searching for relevant news better), but then why lock the old one? I don't think anyone will post someting 2018 related in a 2017 thread. If locking is needed as people keep on putting messages then somewhere around mid-February would be the berst time.

LJ wrote:

I can understand the new policy, as it would generate a more clarity (and I applaud this move as it makes searching for relevant news better), but then why lock the old one? I don't think anyone will post someting 2018 related in a 2017 thread. If locking is needed as people keep on putting messages then somewhere around mid-February would be the berst time.

We lock the old one mainly for housekeeping. If we didn't, we'd get a million reports because the discussion was being split. I understand the counter-argument, but our aim is for consistency, which had previously been a big complaint. If things are standardized across the board in an organized system, then it leads to fewer questions and less confusion. So far as I've seen, this system has done exactly that. We recognize that this doesn't suit everyone — some people want threads locked after 200 posts like the old site, others want threads to stay open until the end of time — but this system is the so-called "happy medium" we've decided on. We took a lot of user input, and we discussed it amongst ourselves for several months. This is the first clean slate transition year (last year was the phase-in), so there were bound to be some hiccups.

While I agree with the other moderators who have chimed in, perhaps I could suggest a solution. We've closed and locked the old thread, and started the new one. We aren't going to change that. However, if there's 2017 data that still needs to be posted, but you're adamant that it doesn't belong in the 2018 thread, then I can think of a possible alternative. Write up a summary when the time comes (an "end of year report" kind of thing), and post it to the 2018 thread. Then, report your post, and request that it be moved to the 2017 thread as the 2017 summary. We can then move your post to the old thread, and that will wrap up the previous year's discussion.

This isn't something we'd want to make a habit out of, because it's tedious for us, but if it's a one-time thing on a limited number of threads, then I'd be fine with it. I'm talking one post, not any 2017 discussion in the 2018 thread. Every other thread has had smooth transitions, and roughly two dozen of them have done it for the second year now. Several mods (including myself) are very active in region/country threads like yours, and I've seen no complaint with posting previous year's info in the new discussion. We're unanimously against keeping two threads open for any length of time (2017 and 2018), and our system is to roll threads over by calendar year. So, keeping both threads open or delaying the start of some threads would not only be difficult for us to keep track of, but it would undoubtedly cause confusion.