I’ve noticed a noticeable uptick in [1 Year Later] posts recently, most of which don’t serve to add anything meaningful to the post other than to bump it to the top again.
Though I suppose it’d need to be a “quiet” lock to avoid just bumping old, now-locked posts to the top.
Alternatively, don’t allow Discourse to suggest posts older than N months in the “related” posts at the end of a thread.
Just something to decrease the chance someone ends up on an old post without knowing.
Two counter-points:
Just because a thread is old doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value, or the information is bad. No longer suggesting old topics could increase the number of questions on things which have already been explained perfectly well before.
What if there is an old thread for which someone has new, pertinent information? Locking old threads means that old unanswered questions can never be answered, and out-of-date information can never be corrected.
A better solution would seem to be something at the top and bottom of an old thread explicitly noting that the thread is old, as well as a speed-bump before replying that asks users not to bump old threads without good reason (and explaining what those good reasons are).