What happened to the current Hotline questions?

Thanks for the heads up Smaug. As noted above, you can always email the editors or send me a message directly.

I suppose so- far as I've seen it hasn't even reached the level of a nuisance yet, but it is something to keep an eye on.

Actually, I kind of like the old threads; maybe they could start an "oldies but goodies" column; cooking doesn't really change, though fads come and go. I'm more concerned about the suspicious links- probably just take you to someone's ad, but you never know.

Hi Lost_in_NYC, you likely remember this from past discussions, but for anyone else who might be wondering, we don't currently have the ability to sunset older discussions or disable the ability to answer questions. I understand that it's aggravating to have older questions taking over the first page of the Hotline! We appreciate your patience as new features take time to be considered and built.

Hi Lindsay,

Are you sure your tech team hasn't thoroughly looked into options on sunsetting features and closing out comments? Other websites already support this option today on their websites (ex. Trip Advisor boards). I work for a technology company so am definitely aware of what its like to be on both sides of coin when these types of asks arise - both as a consumer of content and as a vendor/provider of content.

From a fellow technology vendor perspective, I think Food52 leaves themselves open to risk (website/operational/reputational/etc) with the open forum hotline section by not implementing some type of cut-off to keep content in check and safe for all your consumers. That's just my two sense.

Further to the idea of cutting off comments, I know newspapers and other websites do it when comments sections get too heated or too full.
Maybe food52 could do it for all threads at a suitable age...say, one or two years old...to make coding easy.

The thread locking and auto-archiving functionality is certainly possible.

Reddit auto archives posts of a certain age (a year? I forget) and many other sites allow for thread locking.

Contributors for the most popular bulletin board system, phpBB figured out how to implement this in 2008.

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=845135

The rudimentary 2008 phpBB solution is actually quite elegant for a first attempt since it allows moderators and users with over 100 posts to continue contributing to a 1+ year old thread.

It's really up to Food52 management to decide how to prioritize the implementation of various features.

I do agree with Lost_in_NYC that there is reputation risk associated with old threads being revived with comments of questionable value.

In my long experience with various bulletin board systems across the Internet (not just Food52), it appears that 95% of the most relevant and thoughtful thread comments happen within 24 hours of the original post.

Is it possible to contribute something of long term pedagogical value to a 1+ year old thread? Sure, but the chances are extremely low.

Thank you Nancy & CV for the support! Again, I'm speaking from professional experience at a technology company and the lax approach on this feature is a bit staggering.

I guess at this point we, the users/consumers, can continue to provide evidence and voice concern to the Food52 team to take action. Otherwise they will realize when something breaks/happens on here.

Moving on...!

While this topic is brought up every six months or so, I think Hotline participants should speak up with their feedback periodically, even if we get the same tired standard non-committal response.

We realize that Food52 is a business and that some of the items that Hotline participants would like to prioritize aren't the same as what is more important to Food52 as as business.

We get that.

That said, historically the roots of this website were based on the "community" [sic] itself.

Online "communities" like the Food52 Hotline aren't really like real world communities. We don't get to elect officials, vote on key ballot measures, recall judges, etc. There are no term limits for Food52 leadership. It is not a democracy.

It really is more like a business-customer relationship. If you don't like the offerings at one coffee shop, you are free to take your wallet to another merchant down the street.

I don't expect much will come out of this discussion. It has been brought up before with no action.

Everyone has their own priorities and interests. We have seen a massive change here at the Hotline over the past 18-24 months, both in terms of the Food52 staff as well as forum participation.

I'm certain Food52 management will state that they are pleased with the path the website is proceeding on. That's the expected response.

Anyhow, I expect to see this topic brought up again in six months (assuming I'm still here to read it).

It was an unfortunate byproduct of fixing another small issue on the site. It's been taken of, so we won't see more old questions pop up moving forward, but the old questions also won't disappear, so the older questions will remain near the top until a lot more new questions get asked.

Okay, I didn't go far enough back into the Hotline, you're right, something else is going on beyond the explanations I described. We're looking into it!

I read your response but it seems to me to be more than that. I started counting the old threads and stopped when I got to 50! Yes, there were a few early in the week that were old threads with responses. All the current threads on dad’s birthday, ways to use cashews, church dinner... where did they go? If this isn’t a computer error, someone is messing with the site, hope not.

Not to worry, no one is messing with the site! It was an unfortunate byproduct of fixing another small issue on the site. It's been taken of, so we won't see more old questions pop up moving forward (unless someone finds an old one to answer!).

Thanks! I'm so glad it got resolved!