LOL.
I admire and ‘lurv’ the caliber of posters here, and the creativity, too. I might cite Space.com as a classic example of ‘how not to do moderation’, but they have been defunct for a couple of months now, so you can’t go and see for yourself. (and I will assert they are defunct largely from some colossal moderator blunders)
I do find ‘contrary’ moderation techniques to be fascinating. For instance, the ‘sock thing’ at Landover. You have some bright creative people (like here) and they have ‘harnessed’ sock power as a real positive for their ‘mission’.
(it would be hysterical and challenging to have Cecil himself posting surreptitiously here from time to time, and to see how quick others notice the ‘master’ in peasant garb amongst the ‘proles’)
Some boards encourage posting ‘pron’ and others will ban you simply for linking to it. I was surprised about the cautions here regarding medical advice, I have never encountered that anywhere else. It actually is a good idea.
Another board utilizes ‘virulent’ racism to highlight some of the absurdities of racism. If a poster does not comprehend the strategy, the board can be VERY shocking. And, just to be perverse, that board also has a ‘zero tolerance’ policy regarding racist posts.
I have noticed my sense of humor can be an ‘acquired’ taste for some, yeah, sometimes mods don’t get it, then hijincks ensue . . .
Not only that, but because there’s no special warning or signal attached to a zombie thread, other people often don’t realize that it’s a five-year-old conversation, and begin posting as if the discussion is current and live.
For some topics, that might not matter too much, but for others, continuing the conversation is completely senseless, especially when it was some sort of personal question or story. Hell, in plenty of cases the OP is no longer even a member, so getting an answer from them is impossible anyway.
I think the whole thing would be much smoother if they could just set vBulletin to lock any thread where the last post occurred more than X months ago, where X is a number large enough to allow for reasonable bumping.
I’ve posted on several boards where a warning comes up before it lets you post. Some say
“Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you’re sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.”
Others give you the exact number of days since a post was made.
That is so true. I’ve even done experiments where I will start the exact same topic on multiple forums, and some are ignored, others a few reasoned replies, some complain, cast aspersion, decry the motive, and others the topic just goes along normally. It’s not only the crowd, it’s the Moderation, how people view you, and sometimes what has occurred right before I make the huge mistake of posting at all.
Wait, I was going to talk about zombie threads. I’m known for making a dead thread get up and walk around a bit. Either for sheer horror, or for laughs. It really depends on the level of animosity that surrounds a forum.
For educational purposes, I’ve done that on purpose before. (obviously not here)
Sometimes the conversation just starts right back up, until somebody notices the dates, and the starts FREAKING RIGHT OUT because somebody dared to respond to post that wasn’t made 5 minutes ago.
Not to annoy anyone, or piss you off, but there are several kinds of posters, usually. The ones that post ALL the time, all day, every day, they see a forum completely differently than a n00b, or somebody who drops by now and then. It’s ALWAYS the person who is always online, always posting, that raises a ruckus about a zombie thread.
Always. Somebody who just isn’t that involved could care less.
Just to expand on what I said earlier, spammers are by far the biggest cause of zombie threads. They search message boards for the name of their business or some related keyword and make their posts. When possible, we delete the spam posts and no one notices the thread has been revived, but sometimes other people respond before we can do that. In other cases, it’s people searching the 'net and not knowing it’s an old conversation or not knowing how the SDMB handles that kind of thing.
For what it’s worth, when I comment that a thread is a zombie, it’s:
To point it out to others, in case they care - sometimes the thread involves people who aren’t active any more, and asking them questions may be…bad form
Brief opportunity for humor…on topic, if possible.
I just came in here to finally ask about this. A lot of good points have been raised. I see the official rule quoted above, but for me, I tend not to like zombie threads in GQ (especially when someone accidentally quotes a now-deceased poster :eek:). Some items for Mods/Admins:
[ol]
[li]Can we, in fact, flip a switch or code up something on this board? The warning text sounds good, or a rule that a poster needs to achieve some milestone before being able to reply to old threads. Or even a new zombie icon for thread listings.[/li][li]In the absence of a warning near the reply box, what is the rule on posting to call out zombie threads?[/li][li]Marley23: Cite? Seriously, I bet the server log stats for this site are interesting.[/li][/ol]
I admit that I frequently post without reading first the whole thread. As a result, not only do I post in zombie threads, but also I sometimes discover that I already posted in it 6 years ago. Often exactly the same thing. It’s somewhat reassuring to notice that I’m generally consistent.
Somebody more technically capable than me would have to figure out if that’s an option we can turn on or a hack to the software. Our policy on hacks and changes to vBulletin is always that we don’t want to do them unless we have to. This does sound like a useful feature.
It’s not a problem and there’s no rule against it. Even if we wanted to stop it (which nobody does), I don’t think we could. It’s just a given that if someone revives an old thread, someone will say “braaaiiiiiins” within two or three posts.
At this very moment people from all around the world are trying to sell you porn and uninspected drugs over the internet. Isn’t that a comforting thought? So many helpful strangers.
I think posters alerting others to the fact that it’s a zombie is a good idea. However, although making cryptic jokes about “BRAIINNNNSSS” may be entertaining, they may be mystifying to the newbie who resurrected the thread.
Fine if you want to post a zombie joke, but let the zombie raiser and any other newbies in on what you’re talking about also.
