Should old threads be auto-locked (more aggressively)?

[CAM-Gerlach]

To note, much of the same motivation seems to be behind this thread, and the suggestions and opinions here inform our response, so I encourage those interested here to share their thoughts to this as well:

Should existing threads be used for new tech-support problems?

Recently I’ve noticed a few cases where someone needed help with setting up or installing something (whether Python itself, Pip, a third-party package…) - but instead of making a new thread, they posted in an existing thread that appears to be about the same or a similar problem, but experienced by someone else with perhaps a completely different environment/diagnostics. Typically this happens a long time after the original case is resolved (or abandoned), and at most tangential reference is mad…