Topic on Talk:Structured Discussions

Old or solved topics may go to bottom or to a 'archives' tab, but replying should be easy. Disagreeing with a past solution must be the easiest thing ever.

No past technology with classic talk pages involves closing right of users to reply, other than archival. Nothing ever makes replying harder.

You please don't make replying harder, either; archives can exist, but only by means of a topic going old/inactive, not by means of a topic being thought as "resolved" by a single contributor.

Gryllida: I'd like a "start a new discussion" option here, that automatically keeps a back link in it metadata to the original closed topic. that would be rather cool.

I disagree. It is not always worth starting a new topic where replying to an old message is worth it.

Gryllida: TheDJ did write "option"... ;-)

I agree that both options are desired. Which option someone decides to use, would probably depend on various factors. I might Revive the old topic itself; or Link-to the old topic in the first post (or summary-area) of a new topic, depending on -

• the age of the original topic
• the length/size of the original topic
• the focus (vs off-topic tangents) of the original topic
• the clarity of writing in the original topic
• the location itself (eg. I might revive a very long & old topic on an article talkpage, but not on a villagepump...)
• etc

That said, they're going to open up the default close for later replies (so that it's more like just adding a {{resolved}} template), and then consider those more complex options for later.