[A K Rao]

Yes, I know it is not possible to reply a Topic which has been already locked. But I have been alleged that I have replied to the Topic viewtopic.php?f=12&t=803 on 19th Sept. 2018, which is already locked where as the fact is that the Topic was locked on 21st Sept.2018 and was given a negative rating along with a Board warning and also deducted my 50 FCs. There are six other members who also replied to this so called the 'Locked Topic' out of which four were given negative rating!

I am really surprised to see this action by the Site Admin. and the moderators, who unnecessarily penalizing me for no fault of mine! I am really feeling dejected and low as I have not received any reply from the Admin. when I clarified the situation.

What you would have done had you been in my place? Thanks!

[OldGuy]

The exact reasons for your penalty can only be fully explained by the site administration, or perhaps one of the moderators.

However, you asked for the opinions from other members, which is the only reason I offer my two cents.

I saw the posts you are speaking about. You and the others were responding to a timely issue from several years ago that was no longer relevant. If you had read the original post and the comments from all those years ago, you would have been able to see that it was no longer a valid topic to discuss. That was the obvious reason for your penalties, not that you had tried to post content to a locked topic.

Those late posts were the reason they locked the topic - after the useless content had already been added.

This site is now 6 years in the making. There are going to be older topics buried in the heap that were relevant at the time they were active, but as things change, some have no reason to be brought up now.

It is important to read the original post and pay attention to what is being asked or stated before responding. You have now learned the hard way why you need to read before posting.

[A K Rao]

The exact reasons for your penalty can only be fully explained by the site administration, or perhaps one of the moderators.

However, you asked for the opinions from other members, which is the only reason I offer my two cents.

I saw the posts you are speaking about. You and the others were responding to a timely issue from several years ago that was no longer relevant. If you had read the original post and the comments from all those years ago, you would have been able to see that it was no longer a valid topic to discuss. That was the obvious reason for your penalties, not that you had tried to post content to a locked topic.

Those late posts were the reason they locked the topic - after the useless content had already been added.

This site is now 6 years in the making. There are going to be older topics buried in the heap that were relevant at the time they were active, but as things change, some have no reason to be brought up now.

It is important to read the original post and pay attention to what is being asked or stated before responding. You have now learned the hard way why you need to read before posting.

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. If that is the case , then don't you think that the admin.should already lock them and/or mention in the Rules and regulations or in FAQ section?

This was not a deliberate attempt of mine to dig out the old topic to reply. My standing on this site is less than two months or so, and I have seen many members replying to old posts and they come into circulation!

In my personal opinion such posts which are old should be locked because many members like me can do such mistake as such Topics are allowed to reply on other sites. (Eg. Mylot)! Thanks!

[OldGuy]

Your suggestion may seem perfectly logical at first, but think about it.

The topics are posted by visiting members and other members add content in their own posts. Some of those topics remain of interest for a very long time. In fact if you look closely, there are still active topics displayed on the site that were originated in 2013, yet they are still perfectly valid for today's topic of conversation. There is no specific expiration date on any topic. Life happens. You have to read it to see if it is current.

Some topics are about a specific event that happened at that time. For example, I recently posted a topic about the site passing 500,000 posts and you commented on it while it is a relatively recent "fresh" topic.

If someone finds that post in 2021 and brings it up again at that time, any content added that far away from the event would be useless other than a comparison of look how far we have gone since then. The topic generally expired on its own but future content may be applicable if properly written. The administration has no need to go looking for such content to lock it, and they could be wrong if something new could reasonably be added years later. Anyone who took the time to actually read the content can see for themselves that it is out of date, or if what they might want to add still applies.

With well beyond 20,000 topics posted at this time, it would be quite a task for the administration to look at every one of them to decide if it should be locked. It is much more logical to expect those who want to add content to actually read the original post themselves to see if added content is justified.

It is right back to taking your own responsibility to reading what you are answering before adding content. I believe the same general "rule" would apply to any site and topics posted there.

[Sam]

It would be impossible to lock every topic that needed to be closed. Of course, ForumCoin could have a automatic thread closing X days after the last reply BUT sometimes old topics are perfectly fine AND interesting (e.g. I like looking at my broadband or phone history by looking through those respective topics here).

I locked the thread. The site closed - a while ago! You bumped it up with something meaningless without either reading the thread or clicking the link.

You will receive a reply if you asked for clarification but give @Fergal or @CyberFreak time to get back to you.

[Fergal]

A K Rao the topic you replied to was almost four years old, in other words it had no other reply since 28 September 2014. We do allow members to reply to old topics when the reply is relevant and adds value to the discussion.

In your reply to the old topic you said:

I sincerely Congratulate you! I am sure your site will be having a great future

The topic in question was about a site, which has been closed for years. The first post in the topic included a link to the site in question, you obviously didn't look at the link before saying "I am sure your site will be having a great future".

If you convince me that your post added to the discussion I will reverse the warning.

Site Admin. and the moderators, who unnecessarily penalizing me for no fault of mine!

The decision to give you a warning was mine, so you can blame me for it if you are unhappy with it.

mention in the Rules and regulations or in FAQ section?

Points 2, 3 and 4 from our rules and guidelines are as follows:

• Please ensure that your posts are helpful.
• Poor quality posts are not allowed. Short posts such as "Great post" & "Thanks for sharing" do not help the forum. If you wish to thank another member please make the effort to say why you are thanking them & how their post was useful to you.
• When replying to a thread please give your opinion or add something new to the discussion, there is little to be gained from simply repeating what has already been said in the thread.

Your post, for which you received the warning, breached all those rules.

[CyberFreak]

As Fergal and others have explained this situation and the reasoning, I wont repeat anything but I do want to add one or two things.

We don't punish users unless we feel we can fully justify it so if we do something like give a warning, there obviously is something that we are confident you did wrong. That said misunderstandings happen aswell but if you are ever unsure, send us a PM and wait for a reply. We have our own lives and alot of other things we need to do here so it can take a day or two if not more. You didnt PM me so I am guessing you only sent a PM to Fergal who hasn't been online alot recently. Publicly posting topics like this and others you have posted will not help situations. If we haven't been online since the PM or haven't got around to reading it, the same would apply to the topic you posted. Posting it publicly will also result in other users becoming involved in a situation (as this is a public forum after all) which doesn't really help the situation and draws more attention to the situation. Sometimes things are better private and issues such as contesting warnings and negative rep are prime examples of things that should be private.

We obviously can't have rules written for every single element and scenario that may or may not happen but our rules cover common areas but we also expect a certain level of common sense when it comes to what you should and shouldn't do. Some users have posted thousands of times and have never had to have any of us admins and moderators contact them or give then negative rep/warnings yet we have members with hundreds of posts who have regular contact from us in one way or another. If you post without thinking or reading what you are replying to, you constantly run the risk of getting caught up in a situation. Yes you may earn extra FC initially by being able to post more in less time but over time, it will come back and bite you and you will lose out when in your case you slip up replying to an old topic and clearly didn't look at the site you were commenting on. We have been in this game for many years so we can see the difference between users who post because they want to and users who post because they want to earn and are posting content that has a desperate looking appearance as those users struggle to find topics to reply to or what to say to be able to make a post.

[Rosalin]

Not yet. And don't want to. Because I'm not sure why it is locked. So don't want to take risk.

[arunima]

I prefer to stay away from locked topics as they would have been locked for some reason. I had once replied to one very old topic without looking at the date and my reply was not relevant in the current date. I got a negative reputation for that and I think it was justified. I now make sure that I look at the post's date and then contribute.