Where did the you are replying to an old topic warning go?

[haydenjames]

Hey all, hoping someone can help me figure this out. I’ve been running my forum for a while now and genuinely enjoy the platform, so this comes from a place of wanting to see it get even better.

I can’t seem to activate this feature in testing anymore:

Warn users that try to reply to an old post

Similar to this message when reviving old topics: [image] Sometimes users reply to a months- or years-old post without realizing the post was that old. The topic itself may have recent replies, so there is no warning about reviving the topic in that case. However, I think it’s still worth warning the user that they are about to reply to a really old post.

I’ve tried replying to old topics (2+ years old) on my forum and here on Meta. No popup appears.

I actually spent time customizing that text. The default wording felt too discouraging, so I rewrote it to encourage replying when someone had something genuinely new or additional to add. That custom text is now gone. it seems.

This is part of a pattern I keep running into. I’ll invest time configuring something to fit the community I’m building, and then it quietly disappears in an update. No heads-up, no deprecation notice, just gone. The removal of bumping when editing your own post is another recent example: Returning bumping after editing last post - #12 by haydenjames

I get that Discourse evolves and not every change can have a long runway, but for settings that admins have actively customized, it would go a long way to surface those changes in the “What’s New” section of the admin panel. Even a short note like “this setting has been removed” would give us a chance to adapt rather than just discovering it’s missing.

I understand there are GitHub discussions and release notes, but from an admin perspective, it would help to have clearer visibility or some form of notice when changes affect existing configurations or remove customizable behavior. A stable product should be just that.

Is there any way to restore or replicate the old topic reply encouragement custom text I had? And if not, is there a recommended alternative?

Edit:

Apologies, I didn’t have my coffee yet. lol For me, Discourse is genuinely the best forum software ever created! It revived a format that most people had written off and made it feel modern again. Its high rate of adoption online is proof of that.

But, it’s also at times, like that girl who doesn’t know how beautiful she is and keeps adding makeup she doesn’t need. Discourse is already beautiful! It doesn’t need much +/- to stay relevant as long as the need for this type of peer-to-peer interaction stays relevant online.

Someone recently wrote about Xfce (Linux desktop UI) being ‘the most boring desktop environment’ as the highest praise: Xfce, the Most Boring Desktop Environment . Same energy. It just works, stays out of your way, and lets you do what you came to do. I’d just love to see that well-deserved decade-under-the-belt confidence from this brilliant software.

Updates > Changes

[simonk (Simon King)]

See here:

@chapoi

For the one specifically discussed here, our reasoning was that the goal of preventing necro-posting didn’t align with our values: we believe that content has longterm value, so why would we discourage participation in a topic that someone wants to discuss? We would rather have a topic revival than encouraging people to create duplicate topics, which would be the implied alternative.

[haydenjames]

@chapoi

the goal of preventing necro-posting didn’t align with our values: we believe that content has longterm value, so why would we discourage participation in a topic that someone wants to discuss? We would rather have a topic revival than encouraging people to create duplicate topics, which would be the implied alternative.

This I agreed with 100% which is why 2 or 3 years ago I replaced the default text to use the opportunity for better messaging that better aligned with our community as well. The notice, wasn’t the issue, it was the default messaging. In any case an option to enable, disable or customize would have been fine.

[haydenjames]

Ok, so I searched our staff forum, and I found a backup screenshot of my custom text for necroposting in our discussions:

Is there a TC or other solution that can bring this brilliant UX feature that was built-in to Discourse?

So yes, I don’t think we should discourage engagement, necroposting, or bumping if substantive. Rather, use the opportunity to train and guide our forum members.

I see the complete removal of this feature as a lost opportunity to do just that.

I hope this is helpful.