Once upon a time, reviving very old threads that had lain quiescent for years was considered a faux pas here, back before we were indexed by Google. But times have changed. I’d bet that a good proportion of our new members are coming from Google searches that brought up an older thread that intrigued them, so they joined and posted in it.
And what’s the inevitable welcome they get? “YOU IDIOT! THIS THREAD IS A ZOOOOOMBIE! BRAINS! BRAINS!”
Way to be the Unwelcome Wagon, folks. Let’s drive people off the day they join because they broke a board rule that is, with Google indexing, all but obsolete! Being surly and combative to new members whose only crime was reviving a zombie thread is sure to convince them to stay!
Folks, most of these people aren’t trolls. They’re mostly just normal folks like us who happen to have come to the Dope from an outside, impersonal source which wasn’t capable of warning them about things like reviving threads and such. When you jump on them immediately with completely incomprehensible (to them) scoldings, you really make this place look less than interesting. You are probably driving people away with these “ZOMBIE!” attacks.
The more joking ones are fine. It’s the condescending, smug, angry, nasty ones that are a problem, and I’m seeing a lot more of them as time goes on. Let it freaking rest. If you feel the need to inform about the zombie rule, inform gently, preferably without sharp words and condescending attitude. Otherwise you’re going to shrink the membership even further than it already has shrunk.
But does this board desperately need legions more members who don’t understand the workings of the internet well enough to realise that reading date stamps on whatever google spews up is a good idea?
I say be hard on them and the ones that weather the snark and learn from it are going to be keepers anyway. 99.99% of the rest are idiot one-post wonders. Who needs them?
do we need yet another board which thinks it’s the most awesome, smartest place on earth and rails mercilessly on people whom it decrees are not good enough?
Sure, why not?
It’s better than the alternative - boards where any stupid yahoo is welcome to post and post often. This place turns into a kinder, gentler board where yahoo answers type folks start congregating, most regulars will be gone.
I should have realized the Snobbies would respond. Look, the idea that we’re some kind of super-special, ultra-intelligent, better than the vast mass of humanity demographic is…well, kinda dumb. It doesn’t matter if we get a flood of Youtube commenters here. If they’re that bad, they’ll get banned eventually for being jerks, if not something more specific. If they aren’t that bad, they’ll probably fit in. If they don’t fit in and want to leave, that’s up to them. But this look-down-your-nose, board-snob bullshit is both unjustified and unwise.
I don’t think knowing that threads can be revived indicates a lack of knowledge of how the Internet works.
I have threads on the Internet that I personally started in 1995, that sometimes get revived, and I think it’s fascinating. I like to see how perspectives change over time.
I didn’t realize threads had a shelf life. Way to be booooooring.
Or is the groupthink here that “it’s better to start a new thread on the same topic, which we have all already commented on, then to just use an old one”? That’s interesting.
I can think of a whole lot more interesting ways to “see how perspectives change over time” than unwittingly reviving a thread about a 4-year-old boyfriend issue or whatever the fuck by someone earnestly addressing the OP, not realising that the whole thing is a fucking zombie.
It may be. But it didn’t happen because only the better-than-general joined. The membership may be better because it’s been continually shaken down, the real idiots and jerks having been banned and the very-bad-fits falling away on their own. The point is that the board depends on a continued influx of members, some of whom stay and some of whom don’t. If you cut off that influx because you somehow think we’ve achieved some magical equilibrium, the Perfect Membership that can never be changed, the board will whither even more than it already has since the Very Questionable Management Decisions of the past few years began.
I see this attitude occasionally here, that we’re on such a higher plane than anyone else on the internet, and it makes me laugh every time. I’m a long-time member. I’ve been here since 2000. And I don’t really think I’m anything special. I’m an average person, with maybe just slightly-above-average intelligence which doesn’t really manifest in my life conditions. I’m not wealthy. I’m not even really financially comfortable…I live paycheck to paycheck. My major talent is the ability to recall useless trivia. I’m nobody special. And I don’t believe that I’m unique in the membership of this board.
If they bump a years-old thread to add something positive, or even remotely topical or relevant it would be one thing. But the majority of these resurrections seem to be to repeat something that was disproven years ago, or to parrot something the thread had figured out by post #15. They don’t freaking read the treads they are bumping. Those people are a net loss to any board anywhere, and don’t deserve anything but derision and contempt. Fuck 'em.
Now those bumpers who actually read the threads and bring in new information are welcome anytime anywhere. they are the life blood of a board.