Usually, even if nobody’s been banned and if there are no dead Dopers who posted to the thread in their pre-corpsitude days, I’ll eventually notice posters who used to be active but aren’t anymore. I’ll go, “Swimming Riddles is posting again?..waaaiiiiit.” Then I’ll see the dates, do a headslap, and see if I posted to the thread during its earlier incarnation(s).
Ditto.
I’m not good at remembering to check dates on OPs.
Sometimes I catch on because none of the usernames are at all familiar!
It wasn’t my original intent, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t love for this thread to get bumped after six or seven years.
This will one day may a great zombie thread.
How many here checked the date on this thread to make sure it wasn’t itself a zombie? 
This board does quite well on google; I see it pop up in random searches from time to time. That’s how I found this board in the first place. I imagine a good percentage of resurrections come from people that find a random thread on a google search (google doesn’t much care how old a thread is), decide they’ve got something to add, then sign up and post without realising how old the thread is. At least, that’s my read on it, given the amount of brand new posters giving advice on a question asked a decade ago. 
Personally, if I see a thread I don’t recognise that’s onto multiple pages, then generally it’s a zombie. Of course, I haven’t been around here that long, so it could just be a thread from earlier in the year, I’m not sure if that counts.
Do you ever open a zombie thread, see all the BANNED notices and for a second think,“good lord, what happened?” I’m always disappointed that its not some epic flameout with the mods handing out bannings left and right withing 30 minutes of the first post.
In the old days, banned posters would sometimes be reinstated. So when I’d see a long-banned person in a zombie thread, my first thought would be “Oh shit oh shit oh shit why did (raving asshole) get reinstated?”
Now they give warnings and suspensions so when you’re BANNED you stay BANNED, and this is less of an issue.
Yes. It’s amazing how the most innocuous threads can be filled with people who subsequently got banned.
I hope I never see DEAD under my name.
All the time.
Me too, kinda. I spent several years moderating in a politics forum, and there were a couple of threads where mods handed out timeouts like candy on Halloween.
Not bannings, though (often they were well-deserved but not given).
raises hand
Anybody have an example of one of those "epic flameout"s?
(Not the less than epic one from 2 days ago.)
The references to Plymouths and Circuit City are a tipoff.
I don’t know. “DEAD” is a bit in your face, but a discrete “RIP” under a fallen poster’s handle would be useful at times.
Usually I realize as soon as I see a long gone poster, then search for the person who revived it. And since I opened it, I wonder if I should contribute, or let it die again.
Usually not until I see somebody crack a stale zombie joke.
Or the information seems very dated. I opened an old tv show thread in Cafe. They were discussing the show like it was still on. I checked the post dates and saw the thread was 10 years old.
Somebody here on the SDMB (Polerius, not sure if they’re still around) made a really cool Greasemonkey script that tells me if the thread is old or not, based on reading the thread’s ID number or something. It’s not perfect, but it informs me reasonably reliably and clearly, so I’m rarely fooled by a zombie these days.
I can think of one from years ago that was ugly.
I made exactly this suggestion in ATMB a few years ago. It was not well-received. Suggestion: Additional Member Status of 'Deceased' - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board
It usually takes me until I start seeing the zombie jokes. Then I go back up and start trying to figure out what got some of those previous posters banned.
Me, too. Though I found the first to be sufficient and so turned off the second one. I think it’s really more for if you’ve been linked to an old thread, to remind you not to post. Because, IIRC, once someone does post, the warning goes away.
This just happened, I read the thread on men’s piercing and was a good deal into it before I realized it was not only old but that I had commented in it already.