And if so, how is it done?
If it’s not locked, an old thread can be revived. However, the staff have said very sternly that they do not want old threads being resurrected. If you wish to add a comment to an old thread, start a new thread with your comment and provide a link back to the old thread.
The official word from Arnold Winkelried, an administrator here.
To revive old threads, simply add a comment to them. However, as has been stated, it’s just not desirable to revive old threads. I think if the thread is less than three months old, you may be able to get away with it. However, if the thread in question is two years old… don’t. Start a new thread with a link to the old one.
F_X
I’ll bump this thread in about 6 months or so, so that other newbies will know that bumping old threads is frowned upon.
What?
Do you have something new to add to the thread, or are you just posting to it again so that it gets more attention? If it’s the former, then as the FAQ said, if it’s older than three months, start a new thread with a link instead. I don’t know that this was ever stated sternly, though. If it’s the latter, it’s known as bumping, and I believe this is what gets the sterner treatment.
I don’t understand why they don’t want us to revive old threads. It’s counterintuitive. Because think of all the times someone (often a newbie) has started a new thread, and gets a chorus of replies: “We already had threads about this. Use the search function, idiot!”
So: damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
I think the chorus is raised because there is nothing new to add. It’s just a re-hashing of ground already covered.
How do you know in advance there’s nothing new to add? I reopen old threads when I have something new to add.
To issue a blanket condemnation of old thread reopenings is just moronic and senseless as far as I can see. I don’t buy it because no one — no one, no matter how many times I pose this question — has ever provided a rational explanation for this.
Um, yeah, I see oxymorons like this too.
We’ve had a thread about this already, why didn’t you search?
Then
Do not overuse the search function, as it’s hard on the server.
I haven’t heard an explanation why starting a thread with a link to the old one is preferable than just adding to the old one. Personally, it would be much more convenient for me as a reader to have it all in one.
Well, there are, for instance, people who were here and now are banned or gone for some other reason. These people may have started the thread in question. The title of the thread may be particularly memorable to some people. Raising that thread to the top of the list would stir up a mess of old feelings and old troubles.
In case you think this is hypothetical, it is not. It has happened. One example coming to mind had to do with the poster Satan and a thread about his then girlfriend whom he subsequently had a huge, painful breakup. That thread got resurrected a couple years later.
Old threads can potentially have hijacks that don’t need to be continued, as the people involved are no longer present to notice your witticism that trumps theirs. That can also apply to the main topic.
Bumping a thread to say, “Yeah, me too” isn’t good.
The recommendation to search is to prevent having twenty new threads on “Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?” Or The Monty Hall problem. Or “the whole nine yards”. It’s been done, you don’t have a new comment, it’s all been said, do a search.
If you have a new comment (and you’ve checked), then starting a new thread isn’t harder than bumping the old one, and it makes it clear to people what the new material is.
I’d like to echo Irishman’s comment about making “clear to people what the new material is.”
More than once I’ve opened a thread that looked interesting. Read for awhile, and then realized that it was a two year old thread that I had previously read. Someone had bumped the thread. Without checking the date of the OP it is not immediately clear that one is viewing a “rerun” so to speak.
I don’t have time to re-read threads. Especially if they’re long ones. Start a new thread and provide a link to the original thread in the OP.
Poor choice of words. My point was, frequently a new poster will start a thread that has been done to death in the past, without searching to see what has already been said about his topic. Perhaps, if a search had been done, the thread starter would see his new thread was unnecessary.
Perhaps the best way to deal with this is to start a new thread, link to the earlier thread, and mention that your question wasn’t covered there or you thought more input would be useful.
The issue, I think, is one where common sense prevails.
If you want to discuss a topic in Great Debates that was dealt with in a two-years-old thread and there’s nothing current, open a new thread and place a link in your OP to the old thread. That’s quite acceptable, and preferred. Say there’s a question about what would be a “socially sound” way of realigning American states, and the question was discussed in 2000 – open a thread to set forth your proposal, and link to the thread from 2000.
On the other hand, if you have useful information about a GQ question that’s been inactive since Tuesday, post a response to it. It’s less than a week old; that’s fine.
There are gray areas in between – and the three-months guideline is intended to give some standards to that. But common sense is what the mods are looking for.
As long as this thread is here, let me ask: There’s a thread I started a loooong time ago (well, like 2 years or so). It was a poll-type thread in IMHO, but for some reason (that I can’t remember) I wasn’t able to go back and tally up the results or make any conclusive remarks. Every now and then it occurs to me to go back in and respond and I always end up putting it off. But after reading this thread I wondering if updating the old one would be undesireable from a mods POV.
Moe, if I were you, I’d start a new thread, summarize the OP in the original thread (making it clear that it was not a continuation of the poll), provide a link to the original thread, and then announce the results.
I’ll kind of echo Polycarp. In the two “Comments” forums, I don’t have much problem with someone resurrecting an old thread. It often makes more sense to do that than to start things anew; it sort of depends on whether your new post is a comment IN RESPONSE TO something said the old thread, or whether you’re really starting a new discussion.
It’s the “soft” forums – IMHO, BBQ Pit, MPSIMS – where bringing up old threads is often painful or just looney.
I get it. I’m more of a “hard forums” kind of guy and I deal in hard facts and arguments more than silly stuff. So from my perspective I think when there’s something of substance to be contributed that’s materially relevant, we don’t need a statute of limitations. But if it’s fluff, let it go.
I agree.
The resurrection of this thread is looniness.
I thought we had wiped up that whole crappy mess behind us and moved on.
Apparently not.