Moderators: Please freeze or archive old posts
 

Top Gear's frenzied activity is just the latest example of posters who dredge up old, preferably inflammatory posts for no good reason.
I've suggested many times before that the moderators/admins of this forum should selectively freeze or archive these old posts...posters can then look at them if they're so inclined but the trolls can't use them to stir up trouble at a later date.
The moderators have shown often enough that they have the ability to freeze threads...the racism thread was frozen quickly enough.
Not all old threads have to be frozen--some are still relevant to current travel and non-inflammatory. But there are plenty more that don't need to be revived.

Another vote for putting old posts out to pasture!

If we put old posts to pasture, will people still be able to read the information on them?

Top Gear is back? OH, NOOOOOOOOOO

If frozen, no more posts can be added. You can read the thread -if- you can find it but no one can top it.

Of course those old frozen threads would be easier to find in the future if the search function worked consistently.

And don't get rid of great threads like the Vikings one!!!! :(

They'll fall back down. I can't find any of TopGear's posts. ((b))

They must have pulled them, because TopGear's posts were everywhere this morning.

Is top gear he same person as crab louse,UKstudentmojo,and various other gross names? Can't they freeze the computer he works from from the isp(?)?

i vote for another solution...outlaw posting for the sole purpose of influencing the order of posts. yes, that means no more TTT and the like. fodors has designed a system whereby active posts (those with interest) are presented first.

of course the down side is that some more obscure posts may fall away perhaps unread. however, the system should be allowed to work without people playing god by promoting posts that do not have sufficient interest.

we saw the extreme whereby someone has manipulated the board to the point of havoc but even the person who might keep TTTing their post in order to keep it, say, in the top 10 is equally dishonourable.

Budman- They must have been pulled them because they couldn't have all "fall(en) back down" so quickly.

Walkinaround- I'm afraid that might only encourage him to write something more offensive than "TTT".

Maybe instead of freezing the archives, Fodors should instead ban Top Gear from the forums - at least with this screen name. After all, he showed up again this morning.

KC

No, I don't think we should be prohibited from seeing the old posts, just be kept from stirring them up again.
For starters, I'd freeze all old posts whose last entry came BEFORE registration. Then move on to the obviously inflammatory/political posts. There could even be an archive section--Rick Steves has one on his Graffiti wall (or did) where tiny, troublesome trolls (TTT) can go and relive the good old days of national bashing and namecalling.
Why won't one of the RED STAR BOLD FACE staff moderators from Fodors come on board and give us their rationale for keeping those old posts alive?

There are enough of &quot;us&quot; to screen effectively for the re-appearance of this &quot;new&quot; malcontent. And the solution is a hundred <i><b>E-mail a copy of this post</b></i> to <font color="red"><i><b>[email protected]</b></i></font>

Best wishes,

Rex

But what seems to be happening is that the Editors are deleting the threads that s/he resurrects completely, and that's a shame if the thread happened to be interesting.

Or is the Editor simply deleting the troll's post, resulting in the old thread going back to where it chronologically was before?

Hopefully, it's the latter - - that's what we would want, right?

E-mail a copy of any &quot;topped&quot; posts to yourself, and then you can check later.

Vikings one no one can find!
And search does work weird, doesn't it?

I haftah say that Viking thread was as funny as one of John Kerry's swift boat adventures, and about as accurate as well. ;)

Hell, if the post is funny and harmless and that one seems to be, leave it up. :)

I would hate to see old posts frozen or destroyed. So often they are interesting and useful. There is a thread on the Africa forum where someone (LyndaS) has organized all the East Africa trip reports under one thread. It is a wonderful resource and it would be a shame to not be able to access this information.

The topping for malicious reasons doesn't really happen that often, and Fodor's is quick to respond to complaints. I think it is one of those petty annoyances in life that we must agree to cope with because the solutions are less attractive than the problem.

I wouldn't want old threads to be frozen. Well, maybe *occasionnally* someone is going to revive an inflamatory thread. So what? It's not the end of civilization.

Most often, old threads are topped because they're interesting or because someone asked a closely related question. That's a good thing, IMO.

Don't throw the baby with the bath water.

Topping is a convenient way for a poster to keep a list of threads of interest.

If you had topped the vikings thread, you could easily find it by clicking on your screen name; that's handy when the search function remains largely dysfunctional.

I also don't like the idea of freezing useful threads unless we have arrived at the end of time and nothing is ever going to change. Assume there is a thread praising a certain restaurant. The thread is frozen; the restaurant changes hands and becomes mediocre. We would then have an inaccurate thread that could not be corrected, and might lead some to visit that restaurant. I think a new thread would be far less useful than a posting to the original thread listing the current status of the restaurant. Our very first evening in Paris we walked many blocks to dine at a restaurant that had been praised on one of these forums; unfortunately the restaurant had been closed for over a year and no one had updated the forum.

Inflammatory or coarse threads should be totally removed. If a thread contains something of value, but has been sullied by a new posting, the editors should be asked to remove the new posting and suspend or remove the poster.

I have been lucky in that the offensive postings listed above have apparently been removed so I didn't see them, but my understanding is that the editors temporarily suspend users' posting privilege when they first misbehave; that would indicate that after the suspension, the malefactor could resume posting. I would hope that after two strikes, the offender would be permanently barred.

Oh! And indeed there are also some super-threads with links to other useful threads and/or compiled informations of significant importance about a destination. It wouldn't be a good thing to have them frozen.

Especially not since the search function isn't very reliable.

Topping is harmless...and useful, find something else to worry about!

Vikings reposted (sorry, edited!)

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34790830

If a post hasn't been topped since before registration AND it's mostly inflammatory politically nonsense (like comments about John Kerry and Swift Boatas), then why does it deserve to be kept open? What happens is that someone does top it with some more nonsense and then voila, it gets deleted in its entirety. Better to keep those OLD, INACTIVE posts as they were, rather than leaving them around for the trolls to re-open. Some of these posts that have been dredged up again by TTT etc. were neither funny nor useful.

I agree with BTilke.

FAINA,
I am so greatfull to you for this! I am already histerical and I just started reading.
What have you edited?

Thanks

&quot;Topping is a convenient way for a poster to keep a list of threads of interest.&quot;

No, it's not. They soon get buried in his/her own listings and might as well be untopped altogether.

Far better to construct one's own Fodor's Favorites Folder and add direct links to threads of interest to it. Sub-folders by topic can help reduce the effort involved in finding a specific thread, <i>e.g.</i>, Paris Restaurants or Free London Attractions.

If one wishes to reference a thread for the benefit of another poster's question, that should be done by posting a direct link in the thread containing the question. Topping is a hit-or-miss way of presenting a thread, because it will rapidly sink out of sight and the poster with the question may have gone to church.

I think topping is stupid and unnecessary.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;AND it's mostly inflammatory politically nonsense (like comments about John Kerry and Swift Boatas), then why does it deserve to be kept open? &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

Ahhhhhh, listen closely now. Don't tell anyone now, :-$ but, well, this was a joke. IT-WAS-A-JOKE!!!!!! A JOOOOKE!! Sheeeahesh, what a nimrod!!:-$

Now, get a life and lighten up wil yah.

Robespierre, topping happens each time you reply. Take a deep breath. Count to 10. Go to another thread instead of calling others' actions &quot;stupid and unnecessary&quot;.

Ziana, the spelling and some posts like &quot;oh, this thread is great&quot; and don't remember if anything else.

We can't request to stop topping for the sake of the newbies - they don't know how to search!

Duh.

What do you call doing something over and over that doesn't accomplish its intent?

&quot;percevirance&quot; LOL

perceverance, sigh... we need spell check!!!

(or at least I do ;) )

try 'perseverance' :P

Lots of very funny banter on some of the old posts made prior to registration.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;Lots of very funny banter on some of the old posts made prior to registration&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

Yes there was.

Thing is that it is very easy to determine what is a trolling post or post that was written for humor.

Those people who do not like to partake in some of this sillyness always had the option to skip over the offending post.

I learned that it was easy to spot these kinds of posts. Why are Americans slobs? Why do the French not bathe? Why do Amerians insist on wearing those dreadful white sneakers? and so on and so forth.

What was funny was how people responded to some of them. LOL

Have they removed Robespierre's 'white album' post??? I can't find it... (and not just cuz I can't see the writing!)