point 1, you seem to be unaware that google exist. many people that ended up looking information on a forum is because they followed a link after googling a question or a topic.
indeed
Google
top results are wikipedia (Steve balmers page) then bill gates wikipedia page, then the official microsoft website.
I'm aware that google exists. the message here is that we're not going to change the forum rules just because you can't use google effectivly.
people shouldnt have to open a new thread that is just a duplicate just because the other thread is locked
so you don't think that threads should be hijacked unless it's you doing the hijacking because your problem sounds simillar?
as I said to you in the last reply, often the symptoms of a problem may be the same yet the solution may be different,
if you've read solutions else where and found that they didn't work then you should put the things that you've already tried in your starting post. if you're not able to form a good post asking for help properly then try looking at this KB article:
Suggestions for asking a question on help forums
but to make it clear, if you can't ask for help describing your problem accuratly enough, that's your problem, not a reason to change the rules.
, the answer is valid at that time, but someone might have the same exact question in the future so that answer is not valid after circuit city block stores went out of business. point is people looking for an answer shouldnt have to go visit 3, 4 10 links for the same question, specially after many of those links are old locked threads that will keep popping up on search results and unable to be updated.
no they shouldn't have to search any links at all. it's be better if they signed up to ask the question AT THIS TIME. you seem to be aware of the fact that information can change. so if you wanted to know something current why would you be trying to dig up posts from years ago? surely you'd just ask for recomendation of the here and now, in the here and now?
search spiders look for meta tags and match words, not length of inactivity. so a 4 year old post will pop up in a search result if it matches the words in the search engine submission
spiders also usually have link depth weighting.
So for example, your thread is the last answered thread right now, if a search spider hits computerforums.org it'll be able to link to your thread from the first page. this is good, the thread has promenance.
when someone replies to a different thread in this section it'll disappear from the first page. the spider will have to go into the suggestions category and then sepect the link.
After a while it'll get buried on page 2, then the path that the spider has to follow is main page > sub forum > page reference > article
the article is harder to find. the harder an article is to find the less search engine love it recieves.
So if you post on an old thread you bring it from the depths back to being featured on the main page, where it's easier to find and is thus ranked more highly...
The spider isn't concerned with inactivity, there's a good chance it doesn't even recognise the date as a date, the spider will be concerned about link depth however. by necro posting you give threads underserved attention because you reduce that link depth.
I'm really not sure what you want here?
you've turned up, told members that their replies weren't good enough (after the original poster already said he was happy with the solution and left). you've then gone out of your way to argue with everyone that the rules should be changed to suit you. nobody else has a problem with the rules.