If so, here’s a thought that came to me after replying to one more like, six too many threads that were started years ago:
Is there a way to have the board change the color of a post that’s more than one year old? That way, it’s easier to notice if you are trying to respond to a years-old post as if it was posted yesterday.
Or you could have done some searching and found that someone requests this about once every week and that the answer always is that the board has no plans to change.
That’s not a bad idea: the problem is it would involve a fair amount of coding and testing. You might consider passing the concept over to vBulletin: Forum - vBulletin Community Forum?
A couple of years ago Polerius made a Greasemonkey script that does the trick. I find it to be fairly reliable, and though not excitingly fully-featured or interactive, good enough for my purposes.
Note there’s a followup script that also highlights threads before you click on them.
This would only help for regulars anyway. The people who initially bump the old threads are usually non-members, who wouldn’t know that posts should be blue instead of red.
It could be helpful for memebrs, though, because I often see a member add to a zombie thread unknowingly (after a newbie bumps it), and then get embarrassed when they find out.
Or you could have tested your theory and performed the search in google to see if any results come up before rudely suggesting someone else follow your method that doesn’t work.
Given that the OP doesn’t know how a thread may be worded, the natural thing is to search similar terms to the ones he/she is thinking, for example:
“color code old posts site:straightdope.com”
But the first two pages show nothing relevant other than this thread.
Just because you watch every episode of ATMB doesn’t mean everyone else does.