We just finished archiving and deleting old WPML support threads. We did this to remove old topics with outdated information. Because of this, some old support topics you find in Google may not be available anymore.
Why This Is Necessary
We noticed that there are a lot of really old forum threads that provided information that was out-of-date and misleading. Such threads were often very popular on Google so WPML users would follow them even though there are now better solutions and workflows available.
For example, you could find mentions of the WPML Translation Management plugin in many older threads. However, we merged this plugin into the WPML core plugin in 2021 and all topics mentioning Translation Management are becoming obsolete fast. So, in this example, the new way of cleaning up the old topics will make sure that you and other users don’t get confused by a plugin that is not needed anymore.
In short, most of the old support threads were causing more harm than good.
What We Are Doing
This is how our support forum will manage old topics from now on:
Threads older than 5 years are deleted – these topics are considered completely outdated and we remove them permanently.
Threads older than 2 years are archived – these topics are not available publicly but their author can still access them after logging into their account.
Anyone can request that we un-archive specific threads they think are still relevant from the last 5 years.
To do this, visit the archived thread, click the Request Unarchiving button, and fill out a short form.
How archived WPML forum threads look like with an option to request their unarchiving
Thoughts, Feedback?
We understand this update might be inconvenient for some users at first as search engines reindex our site and update their results. But, we believe it will make it easier to find relevant information to help you in the long run.
We’d appreciate your feedback and thoughts on the subject.
