Has any thought been given to “Degoogling” the board? (IOW-not make it searchable on Google) IMO, that would zombie resurrections, and “drive-bys”. And yes, I know I’m anal about “zombies”.
Yes, let’s make this board even MORE inaccessible to others!
Meh; zombies and drive-bys are trivial.
I honestly don’t get why everyone is so uptight about zombie threads. So what if some newcomer posts to a thread that’s 4 years old. Who cares?
If you don’t like it, don’t post to it.
If you don’t realize it and post to it anyways, it’s not going to bother anyone, no one’s going to make fun of you.
If it doesn’t bother you…well, you can’t say it doesn’t bother you since you started a thread about it.
I just wish the mods would stop locking the zombie threads since they specifically said they were ‘ok’ a few years back and yet it seems like they still get locked once in a while.
I think, when it comes to the zombie thread thing, we’re at the point where the complainers are more of an annoyance then the actual ‘problem’. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more threads about zombie threads then actual zombie threads.
Personally, I’d like to see a nice balance. There’s another VB board that uses, what I assume is, a hack to ward off people bringing up old threads. If you try to bump a thread that’s more then X days old, it warns you about how old it is and makes you click a check box before hitting submit.
Google makes the Board much better; the SDMB search function works for some things, but I’ve often had to use Google to find something on Board. Why would we want to reduce the accessibility of the Board?!?
For instance, see this sticky by Twickster explaining how Google searches work in some cases where the SDMB’s own search function doesn’t: A note about Cafe Society searches.
No. We want more people to find the board and find subjects that interest them, and it helps Dopers search the board more easily. The inconvenience of an occasional zombie thread does not come anywhere close to outweighing those benefits.
They are OK and we have pretty much stopped locking them. However, when a zombie in Great Debates pops up where the original thread was filled with vitriol and the responding new poster is liable to inflame those arguments again, we do tend to close those. We also consider closing threads where there was a lot of vitriol and the new poster responds to a now absent, (or now-banned), poster.
“You have a pimple, eh? Off with your head, then!”
I wouldn’t have a problem with asking a poster,“are you sure you want to post this?” In fact, I like this in general, not just for re-animation.
So, the “zombie problem” is due to a flaw in software? Is this flaw resolvable?
From a revenue perspective, deGoogling would effectively kill new growth of this for-profit enterprise.
You’ll need a far more compelling argument to take cash out of pockets than minor annoyance.
Me neither. What’s the big deal?
[From the other current zombie complaint thread.]From the other zombie complaint currently running:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15843415&postcount=10)
I guess a small, but very loud, minority feels like a sucker.
It is not a flaw or a problem, it is a feature, and an excellent one too. It is a very good thing both for the Dope and the web as a whole that we are indexed by Google. Quite apart from the value of attracting new members and “guests” to view the advertising, old Dope threads are a unique, and very valuable informational resource. Please don’t fuck it up with your absurd hangup about harmless (and often amusing and informative) zombie threads!
Not only is it resolvable, but it has been resolved, and the resolution also added value to the boards in a number of other ways. It was really simple, too: All they had to do was let Google index the boards.
I specifically said that my thread wasn’t a “complaint.”
And I don’t consider myself a “small minority” nor “loud.”
I agree the occasional zombie is not a big deal. Since we started allowing them more I’ve tried to make a habit of checking the dates. I miss a few but meh…
UMM, unless that’s a massive whoosh, indexing the board created the zombie problem.