Well i don't think Rob has just got up and thought here's an idea we could block old threads. It's been done to hide and protect someone's àrse.
I suggested it in the feedback thread. Nothing insidious behind it.
Interesting that everyone is vehemently against it yet when someone goes around bumping a load everyone kicks off about it
It's very rare that it adds to the discussion - smoggle's update above is probably one of the few examples I can actually think of and that could have been done with a link.
It's quite often i start reading a thread and think the views or comments are very stagings and then I realise it's from January 2020 and someone has bumped it because someone had a different opinion back then and they want to show that they were right.
If you really want to provide an update it's still quite easy to do and easy to put a link in to an original thread. Threads can still be found by searching, but you don't end up with those situations where because of wilder, pulis, Traore, monk, Spence, braithwaite, assombamonga etc, someone goes round and dredges up 6 threads and puts grinning emojis in to bump them.
It doesn't block the old threads from being read, so doesn't cover anyone's backside - it would all be available on the WayBackMachine anyway. Just prevents them from being bumped back to the top so easily and because you have to wait a little time between posting threads, discourages trying to make several new ones to say "told you so". It did happen on the old forum but far less than it does here because the search engine, even with google, was much harder to use
If it's interesting to read through the replies back then; that is still possible to do by linking to the thread. That ability isn't lost but it's then immediately obvious that it's a callback because you're following a link to that thread.
Another good option would be to have an archive sub forum where any thread with no replies for over 3 months goes to and that way it wouldn't matter if they got bumped as won't be in the main forum and you'd expect older threads to be in there.