Now, I don’t think zombie threads are a terribly big problem, but I know they get on some people’s nerves. So I had a thought the other day, could people who hate zombie threads better avoid them if the topic lists included the date of topic creation instead of just the name of the topic creator, name of last person to post, and date of the last post?
Imagine if you could tell a topic was created in 2005 without even clicking into the topic? Wouldn’t this help a lot? Sure, you’d still get n00bs coming in via google and such and bumping topics, so there would still be zombie topics, but they’d be at least a little easier to avoid if one chose to.
I know there is incredible resistance to make changes to the board software, and I don’t know how involved this sort of change would be, but it was just a thought.
Nope. I page through zombie threads all the time without realizing they’re zombies, even if I’m noticing there are banned posters in it, and it’s usually a ways into it before I notice the first post date, which was in the, you know, first post.
I honestly don’t understand all the hate with zombie threads.
That’s why we leave them open!
If we can’t post in zombie threads, then why not just get a function that automatically closes threads after a set amount of time.
I know moderators say (and I agree with them) that they don’t mind if the bumping poster actually has something valuable to contribute and is not just doing it for the laughs, but I’ve seen that even when someone does contribute something valuable to a zombie thread, often times, moderators close it.
This seems like a minimal and simple thing to ask. Never mind making zombie threads all stand out with flashing red and purple warning banner or whatever. If the thread list could simply show the OP date for each thread, it would be easy for anyone who doesn’t want to see a zombie to simply not open that thread.
I suggested this a while back in one of the umpty-ump threads on this subject.
The consensus seemed to be that newer versions of vBulletin might have a configuration option for this, but that the version used here apparently can’t do it. One of the guys who runs another board (maybe it was Giraffe?) pointed this out.
The problem is that so many people are so used to reading the posts and not looking at dates (or poster names) that they’re not going to look at the OP date in the list either. After the novelty wears off, we’ll go right back to reading 150 posts before realizing it.
Something I’ve mentioned before, that I think is a great idea, and I don’t think it’s a hack because I’ve seen it on multiple other forums is this.
I’ve seen different variations, different wording and at least one site (though it may be the case on all sites, I’ve only bumped a thread like this on one site) where clicking the button and hitting submit took you to a second page and made you confirm again.
Also, on this site, when I grabbed the image, I noticed they A)locked all the old threads (don’t know if it was automatic or not) and b) slightly less old threads had a different colored icon next to them, I’d guess that was automatic.
