Oh crap, I’m sorry, I should have been more clear!
I didn’t mean oldest as in the oldest (first) question, or oldest as in revived zombie. Although the longest a thread has been left alone before being revived is interesting, too.
What I meant by the oldest question is : How long is the longest a question has sat, waiting for an answer. (Once it is answered correctly, I see it as no longer a question.) But if the board was established in 1999, then chances are the record stands at 14 years, 1 month, 10 days.
Exapno Mapcase, How I found the thread is that I was a member at the time the question was answered. The thread title sounds like a joke. “So there were these two hippos. . .” And of course I had to read the thread. The OP is still a member, and he commented that it took 14 years and 1 month, which is fascinating to me. Awe inspiring.
I’m morbidly fascinated by zombie posters. I’d love to know what motivates these people to join the board in order to post, “Me too!” in a 5 year old thread. Why? Why did they do this? I’m also curious to know how people find the Dope when they do this. What were they looking for?
Within a month of reading that answer to **Earl Snake-Hips Tucker’**s hippo thread, I found a thread in Cafe Society. “Is a penis more appropriate than labia in mainstream film?” Well, that morbid curiosity grabbed me again. I read the thread. (I had to, cod help me, I just had to.) Another zombie poster. This is one of the ones that wants to argue. Which led me to make the post I am linking. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18505797#post18505797
My happiness that a question got answered after 14 years, followed by my referencing it within a month, and it just stuck in my memory.
So as not to bother THE KING’s thread, I just want to point out it makes sense that the more outlandish interpretation would switch to the more normal one rather than the other way around. I’ve seen the idea used in Biblical research. Errors that don’t make sense are more likely to be caught and corrected.
I’m pretty sure that most of time they don’t realize it’s a zombie thread. They do a google search on something, and the thread comes up; they read it without looking at the date, and post as though it were a current conversation.
However, as for the “me too” motivation–well, it seems to me that a lot of this message board is essentially gratuitous posting, whether it’s zombie or not: vanity surveys by OPs who aren’t really interested in the responses, posters not reading the thread and repeating exactly what was said already, or things like that. I think the fact that most of the traffic here occurs during traditional workday hours has a lot to do with it.
Yeah, I’ve been guilty of that…I get interrupted reading a page, have to shut things down, then go back later and miss some previous post saying basically exactly what I do.
I believe I may have been the previous record holder (for all of three or four months) with my answer to Howard Hughes’ estate–current status, which was posted 6002 days (about 16 years and 5 months) after the OP.
I’m going from old memories here. I had just read an article by a woman which said that there used to be laws against transvestism that supposedly defined how many articles of men’s clothing a woman could legally wear. Supposedly a woman could wear some articles of men’s clothing and it was just considered to be fashion; but too many and she was illegally cross-dressing. As I recall, she claimed the number that broke the law was six.
I wasn’t disputing that there may have been laws against transvestism in the past but I had never heard of anything that set such a specific limit. But the woman seemed to imply this was a common law. So I asked if anyone else could confirm such laws existed.
