Is there anyway we can access archived topics and even bring back some from the archives? Some of our oldest topics are still running but because of the way the archiving has worked they have been archived due to their age?
Topics are not archived unless they have not had a reply in at least 30 days. You have full control over whether a topic is archived or not. There may be an issue with it so I recommend that you not use archiving for the time being.
Archiving should be fine. There are no major issues with it unless you have a massive forum. I recommend that you archive each forum individually and to your own needs i.e. 30 days, 60 days, a year, etc.
If the topic has no replies then the date the topic was posted is the date used for calculation, otherwise the date of the last reply is the date used.
So it is always the last active date ... that is good to know thank you. I think I'll poll the members and see when they want archiving done and that way they'll feel in control of it. Thank you for explaining and your patience Padraic ... it is truly appreciated.