I have found some old threads that could do with an update or reference to other content but its unnessasary to flag it as unread.
Basicaly the reference is for those who arrive at the thread through search.
I know I can link a newer thread to an older one but I dont always have a new thread to do this with and it implies it will be of value to the new thread when it may not be.
hmm, IMO if it is not important enough to be shown on top, it should probably not be posted, to avoid noise. So either it is important, or it is not.
I have come accross a number of what we may call “out of date threads” that have difficult solutions for something that is now much easier. If someone found them on search they could waste a lit of time, if it rose to the top they may go “I want that”, without realizing its obsolete and again waste a lot of time.
If it is important to present a new solution you should create a new thread with the new solution. So users can decide, if they want to go with the new or the old solution, if they find them in search.
IMO there is no need to resurrect old threads if they are not valid anymore.
Spammers are always looking for places to put link farms. I can imagine they would take advantage of a system that allowed links to be inserted in existing threads without attracting attention.
In any event, the churn here is so great that your updates are going to be pushed back down the list within only a week or so. I’m always surprised when looking for a post I remember as “new” being buried 30 or 50 posts down.
If there is a workflow or some other information, that needs updating with only 1 “source of truth” it’s possible to mark it as a wiki. So everyone will be able to improve it.
But edits there also cause topics to be “bumped” to the top of the list.
Perhaps I edit the top post, as a wikipage and put something like;
Many of the issues discussed here have new and improved solutions available
See
Then if people see it in recent, the first thing they see is this?
If they find it through search they may look at the top, shall we still post at the bottom?
Note my suggested use of unnamed Quotes but perhaps I could put this?
Tagging yourself (as editor) is pretty much always a good thing, Tones. It’s done a lot on Discourse, I believe.
Meant to add, it’s also common to add to the title…
[UPDATED YYYY-MM-DD] Original thread title here
And tag yourself as editor at the bottom. Then, reader sees a reason why an oldie bubbled up to the top.