The inability to reply to old threads combo'd with inability to PM people is frustrating

I only registered because I saw somebody had the exact same issue I had (I’m tagging them in this post and putting the info at the end I don’t care if it’s the wrong place), and I have basically no way to participate in that conversation or help anybody else reading up on it, because the thread didn’t get enough fresh replies so it auto-locked (It’s from July), and I’m assuming because I don’t have enough posts I can’t seem to DM the person who posted the issue with my solution.

I can appreciate the desire to prevent redundant info and spam, but too many hurdles have been introduced to getting involved in a conversation. Auto-locking stale topics makes sense on a github repo, it does not make sense on a discussion forum. Also, I’m not writing a whole new thread following a template in the help section, or jumping through hoops of making enough posts on other topics just to be able to chime in with a possible solution for somebody. There needs to be less friction involved, or people are disincentivized from participating.

Issue I had a solution to:

@TheRettom for the issues with the namecheap dns challenge plugin: DNS Challenge - Namecheap API You’re pointed at the sandbox api_endpoint instead of production ( See Intro to API for Developers | Namecheap.com ), it only allows you to do it for domains it sees you as owning which is why the namecheap api gives back an error about the domain not being found in your log.
Also make sure your other info (api_key, user) are production account values as well.

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I believe I ended up doing that on my own, but I’ll see if I can edit my post and paste your solution. Thanks for chiming in.

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Thanks for the genuine feedback.

We auto-close topics because they often attract bots, as you’re aware.

But another reason is because when real people do reply, it’s often off-topic When they talk about a “similar issue” they’re facing, the reason they’re replying is because the solution in the thread didn’t work for them, because it’s a different issue than what the topic is about.

Another reason we close old topics is because they are often out-of-date. Caddy is living software that changes over the course of the years, because the Internet changes. When a solution comes in months or years after the question, it can be irrelevant because the question was asked in a different era from the solution.

To add to a closed thread, I recommend creating a new topic – this also increases your trust level faster – with a link to the closed topic (the link on its own line will get an entire box, like this):

and tag the author of the original post just for good measure.

That’s correct – I wouldn’t expect you to fill out the help template when answering a question (it is for asking questions).

In extraordinary circumstances – for example, an old thread that has a LOT of hits from search engines (several thousand) – we may update the old topic to link to the newer answer/discussion if that would be helpful for future searchers.

In general, we follow the pattern of archiving old content for searchability, but prefer and recommend new content by starting new threads. And again, if you’re just answering a question, you can delete the help template since it’s irrelevant.

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