# Ancient Thread Suggestion

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [November 27, 2002, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187 "2002-11-27T19:50:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187/21 "2002-11-30T05:10:44Z")

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Ringo - I answered your question in that other thread.

Since the question about bumping old threads comes up a lot, I expanded upon our guidelines. Read the [FAQ](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1997121#post1997121) for more details.

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**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2002, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187/22 "2002-11-30T20:40:43Z")

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Arnold

You’ve done a very good job maintaining the FAQs. As an old-timer, I can remember when people clamored for one. You’ve given us what we asked for and then some. Thanks for doing it.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187/23 "2002-12-02T16:18:28Z")

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I’ve noticed that long-dead threads often seem to get revived on or near the anniversary of their demise; is this just human error on the part of the person posting (i.e. they misread the last post date) or is there a possibility of some sort of glitch in the way that date indexing works when searching?

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**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2002, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187/24 "2002-12-02T16:24:47Z")

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If there were any correlation, it must be people remembering threads on the anniversary date.

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**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187/25 "2002-12-03T12:18:39Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Coldfire \*  
> \*\*Sucks when your sarcasm is missed by the rest of the world, doesn’t it? 😉
> 
> You could wander on over to the [vBulletin home page](http://www.vbulletin.com/about/), and suggest the modification there, if you like. \*\*

People with vBulletin Boards already do this, through many different means. You could even do an

“alter thread set open=0 where (date of last post)\<(unsigned integer time of open deadline you wish to set)”

or something to close them all at once without modifying the Board - but you would have to include it in normal maintenance then, and that would be a pain in the ass to remember.

Of course, this is all just FYI. I can’t see why the SDMB need change anything.

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**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-thread-suggestion/139187/26 "2002-12-03T12:21:19Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Anthracite \*  
> **"alter thread set open=0 where (date of last post)\<(unsigned integer time of open deadline you wish to set)"**

Note that this code not only does not do anything, it uses the wrong commands, to prevent people from finding new things to try out. So don’t bother trying it.

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