Child Item

A thread was erroneously closed to new comments

Hello,

Ever since the migration to the new community forum software I noticed an increasing number of threads being closed prematurely. I admit I have been unable to find the logic in this.

The latest instance of this bizare new policy is the situation where a moderator posted a reply asking a user for more information (screenshots) and then proceeded to close the thread, leading the user into the impossibility of replying with the requested information, as one can see from this screenshot:

Here is the thread:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/discussions/101001014/make-available-offline-is-not-working-for-me-/697514

It is a thread from 2023 to which jk33 posted a relevant follow-up question, in context, that the moderator has now closed after asking the user to send a couple of screenshots, which would imply replying to the same thread, which is no longer possible.

Moderators, can you explain? What is the logic for so many relevant threads being closed in the past months?

Thanks.

Andrew (DBoxTips)

P.S. I am a volunteer on the Dropbox forums, freely and happily sharing know-how with other users, not affiliated with Dropbox in any way.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Hannah

Hey @DBoxTips, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Generally, closing threads to new replies is part of our moderation process, however, it should be done after a certain amount of time of the thread being inactive.

I'm investigating and will continue investigating why this might have happened.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused by this and of course, I've made sure that new comments are now allowed on the thread.

Thanks for your feedback.

DBoxTips

Thank you for the reply ,@Hannah

Could you please explain how this new policy of closing threads to new replies after a period of inactivity is adding value to the Community? I know it’s your forum and you are free to do whatever you like, but I opened this topic because I thought you could benefit from the feedback.

In this specific thread example it helped that the thread was open in the first place because the user could add to the existing conversation and benefit from the previous context and comments.

If you keep closing old inactive threads (just because, not for a good reason, or at least not for one that you could share with us) you are encouraging the creation of new threads instead of users searching the forum for previous conversations. Why bother searching just to find a closed thread which doesn’t offer you the possibility to inquire about the same problem?

Moreover, I’ve seen the offline files issue mentioned by @jk33 also being mentioned by another user in a new thread (because of course the original one was closed). Dropbox PMs could also benefit from seeing a user post in a historical aggregated thread which gathers multiple instances of the same underlying problem. Dropbox support teams could get less pressure by users being able to find the answers in the forum.

Again, it is your forum and you do whatever you please, of course. I just wanted to share how you’re hurting the experience of users on the forum with this new policy that adds no value. I don’t know who you imagined would benefit from closed threads, but it is certainly not the customers or users of Dropbox.

Thanks,
Andrew (DBoxTips)

Neal

Hi Andrew,

My name is Neal and I'm one fo the Community Moderators at Dropbox. First off I'd like to apologize for this post erroneously being marked as spam, it was a genuine mistake (that happens sometimes but we'll always try to fix it). You might notice the replies are still missing, we're not sure what's causing that but we're investigating it now.

Secondly, I wanted to reply to you directly about your feedback. I appreciate you taking the time to share your experience and ideas, especially about an area I'm so heavily involved in. In regards to topics closed prematurely, we are more than happy to look into these issues and I will follow up myself. Overall though, there are a lot of circumstances that dictate whether threads should be closed or not that are only discussed and visible internally.

I did want to touch base though as I am personally doing a deep dive into closed topics from the last 3 years already. The aim is to help organise things properly but also to find trends and operational issues to be improved upon.

Rest assured I'll be taking your feedback on board and sharing it with the Community Team and seeing how I can work it into my findings. I would however like to set realistic expectations, we won't be able to share any updates on this as they would refer to internal Dropbox policies.

Thank you for the feedback Andrew, and all of your help on the Community!

funwin

why do you lock community threads? How does locking a thread from replies benefit the community.

I have two threads which I'd like to reply to. One of which is a solution to a problem. However I can only start another thread on the same topic which wastes everyones time. Anyone in the future who finds the old thread, would not be able to find the solution.

I see only negative result for the community when threads being locked. same topic answered 15 times, in 15 locations.

Megan

Hey @funwin, thanks for posting here!

Your comments on our Community have been quite helpful, and I will do everything I can to ensure that your voice is heard.

I'll forward your feedback to the appropriate areas so we can continue to improve. If you need something else, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help every step of the way.

DBoxTips

Totally agree with you, @funwin

Unfortunately, we won't be able to find out why the moderators lock threads. The only thing we know so far is:

there are a lot of circumstances that dictate whether threads should be closed or not that are only discussed and visible internally.

Which sounds like corporate speak for "we won't share the reasons with you, we don't care".

I saw only downsides and no benefits to this activity of moderators locking threads. Sadly, the locking continues. I guess it's just part of their agenda, so I imagine there must be some benefit for them, while none for the community.

The quality of the forum has dropped significantly over the past years. A few examples:

Threads for ideas or feature requests get closed down in one month since they were opened
If you want to refer to a Dropbox help article in a post you can't do it because posting links is disabled.

Dropbox has lost their touch that built their famous "consumer playbook". I write this with sadness, as a fan of the product since the beginning and sticking with it for so long.

Andrew (DBoxTips)

funwin

Perhaps we simply post:

This question - LINK TO LOCKED ARTICLE - but open?

**
which makes for a terrible internet and community.

DBoxTips

Yes, that could be a solution and could help with hinting to the moderators that the respective thread should be unlocked.

It's not elegant, indeed, but since the community doesn't offer more these days, it's the best we have right now.

Thanks,
Andrew (DBoxTips)