http://www.crazyontap.com/topic.php?TopicId=2

You can reply to old topics.

Joel did that to cut back on blog spam, to protect his precious FogCreek page rank.

I don't think we really care, do we?

Philo

Feature Defect.

I don't care. Though, most forums that allow posting to old topics float the most recently commented to the top. What you end up with is a bunch of "Hey, can you guys point me to XYZ? I'm looking for it and I found this thread via Google, thanks" as the last post.

I did quite like the way that the old topics 'ended'.

Yeah, I think you should not be allowed to reply to old posts...  it's history.

Bump

You want a forum full of those?

Kevin, you're a moron. NOBODY here has advocated bubbling recently commented threads to the top.

For a long time you could reply to old topics. I used to get emails regarding some posts of mine in old topics, presumably found via Google, and when I went to check the topic I often found somebody had posted.

As nobody is going to know, it is better to lock the thread.

One possibility is to simply have a back button to previous pages of threads. That way a particularly interesting thread could be followed. But in general the idea that rhreads close is a good one.