2am, Last Call!

January 31, 2008 1:37 PM

PonyRequest: Put the expected closing date at the bottom of threads?

It might be nice to know when threads are going to close if we have something to add. A couple of times I've had things to add to threads but when I came back to them, they were closed.

posted by blue_beetle to Feature Requests at 1:37 PM (18 comments total)

I'm not sure we want to encourage last-minute rushes on closing threads. It's thirty days on mefi and metatalk and a year on askme—the chances that five minutes are going to make a difference on anything like a regular basis are pretty much nil, and for the edgecasers who need more certainty than that there's always the time-stamp at the top of the page + 30 days.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:39 PM on January 31, 2008

<joke>
And if the date could be hyperlinked to an iCal event, so I could set up Outlook to remind me to do value-added link dumps at the end, like certain members (who will remain nameless).
</joke>
posted by blue_beetle at 1:40 PM on January 31, 2008

Yeah, this seems like you're asking for a tool to make it easier to game the site in some way. I don't get the utility of such a thing, it's not that hard to just calculate it in your head looking at the timestamps on the page.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:52 PM on January 31, 2008

Maybe just a reminder that threads close 30 days after posting then? It's not evident without some digging.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:22 PM on January 31, 2008

Speaking of gaming the site in some way, I would like all users with exclamation marks in their user names to have the ability to execute INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements against the back-end database.
posted by Pants! at 2:48 PM on January 31, 2008

Hey blue_beetle: Threads close 30 days after posting them.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 3:25 PM on January 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

How long until this thread is closed? One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...
posted by Sys Rq at 4:02 PM on January 31, 2008

Actually, I've privately wished for this too.

Not really in the super-contentious religion/abortion threads, but in slower moving threads in which a discussion might go on among three or four people over the course of a few days, it would be nice to have a little reminder that time is almost up. Also, I'm super bad at remembering how long it takes threads in the different environs to expire.

Having said that, I'm not sure if I could defend this against charges of feature creep.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:04 PM on January 31, 2008

Threads close 30 days after posting them.

Except during leap years.
posted by timeistight at 4:05 PM on January 31, 2008

How do you know whether it's a leap year?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:42 PM on January 31, 2008

Take it to AskMe, gnfti.
posted by languagehat at 4:46 PM on January 31, 2008 [2 favorites]

Leap years don't affect the thread closure. But a leap second might. Lucky for you, I've created a Ponyfish RSS feed for the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service Bulletin C, which tells you whether there will be a leap second five months in advance! That way you can plan your last-second thread gaming down to atomic time resolution!
posted by grouse at 5:19 PM on January 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

Don't forget it's six months on Meta meetup threads, too, right?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:32 PM on January 31, 2008

right?

right.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:44 PM on January 31, 2008

Damn right.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:55 PM on January 31, 2008

Because of the lack of this feature, I'm never going to know whether or not kuatto managed to prove that angels poop 24K gold nuggets.

Wait, the not-knowing is more exciting.
posted by bonaldi at 7:32 PM on January 31, 2008

Last post!
posted by DreamerFi at 2:04 AM on February 1, 2008

Uh uh!
posted by deborah at 1:22 PM on February 1, 2008