Hey there SpicyDirt!
It’s always nice to keep things clean and tidy, however we don’t really go about deleting threads unless it’s absolutely necessary. Many users utilize our forum boards as an archive and even if a thread isn’t active anymore there are times that the original creator and others like to refer or look back on them. There is also the case of peoples’ post counts being disturbed when we delete threads, and some people get frustrated about that. There has been some recent sorting and cleaning in boards but usually the threads we delete are threads where the original post is broken & lost and has no replies. Some other threads that we sometimes delete are locked threads where a user violated the forum/board rules or a thread where sensitive personal information was shared. In any other circumstances we only delete threads upon request when contacted by the original owners of said thread.
As for your concern about users recreating topics that have been started before on much older threads, don’t worry. It happens sometimes and we aren’t going to penalize a user for it as we don’t expect every user to be aware of what’s been brought up or not in the past. We do hope that users are at least mindful of the first page of two in a board and make sure that their topic wasn’t brought up in the recent past. Keep in mind if there was an old topic that you want to bring back up that you can “necro” “bump” an old thread so long as it’s still relevant and you leave a thoughtful response that contributes to reviving continuing the conversation.
For more tips feel free to refer here:
https://feral-heart.com/smf/index.php?topic=62227.0Thanks for bringing this up though <3