# Martin/Zimmerman largest 'organic' thread? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [April 5, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958 "2013-04-05T21:54:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958/1 "2013-04-05T21:54:58Z")
I keep noticing the tallies on the Martin/Zimmerman thread - past 9500 posts and 255,000 views, now. Is that a candidate for the longest “natural” thread on the board? That is, excluding the deliberately propagated joke, trivia, etc. threads? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958/2 "2013-04-05T22:46:53Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > I keep noticing the tallies on the Martin/Zimmerman thread - past 9500 posts and 255,000 views, now. Is that a candidate for the longest “natural” thread on the board? That is, excluding the deliberately propagated joke, trivia, etc. threads? I’m not sure what the difference between “organic” threads and “joke” threads is supposed to be. Threads last as long as posters are still interested in them. A “deliberately propagated” thread is no less natural than the Zimmerman one. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958/3 "2013-04-06T00:14:26Z")
Hell, that’s not even all of the organic clusterfuck. It’s a continuation from this locked thread: > **[Why hasn't the Neighborhood Watch shooter been arrested?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=644910)** > > Story here. Synopsis: A teenager visiting relatives in a gated community is seen by the neighborhood watch captain, who calls 911 to report a “suspicious person”. The operator tells the captain not to do anything and just wait for the police to... ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958/4 "2013-04-06T01:35:13Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m not sure what the difference between “organic” threads and “joke” threads is supposed to be. Threads last as long as posters are still interested in them. A “deliberately propagated” thread is no less natural than the Zimmerman one. Sorry, I didn’t think it was unclear. Some threads are started and continued indefinitely on purpose - the various joke threads, the “play off the last item” threads, etc. - there’s an implicit dare to see how long the thread can be made to persist and people never quite give up on extending it for its own sake. In a regular topic, there’s a point at which the topic dies a natural death (until it’s zombie’d, at least). It has a natural lifespan and grows only “organically,” not by being force fed. The M/Z thread is far, far larger than any normal-topic thread I’ve seen in a long time, thus the question. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958/5 "2013-04-06T02:20:55Z")
Wow, and I thought the Paterno thread was long! ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958/6 "2013-04-06T04:22:57Z")
I don’t know what you consider organic, but there was a longest thread on the dope thread a little while ago: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=679398&highlight=longest](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=679398&highlight=longest). If you consider Baker’s Dozen inorganic, that leaves the WoW threads with about 12 000 posts each. Also, what restrictions does search have? I know words have to be at least 4 letters, but I tried to find the longest threads by searching the entire board with a few common words (these and time), figuring I’d get almost all of the threads, or at least the long ones, and it didn’t work. Is there a limit to the number of threads that can be displayed as a result or something? ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2013, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/martin-zimmerman-largest-organic-thread/654958/7 "2013-04-06T07:10:48Z")
IMO any thread that asks you to respond/add to the previous post is inorganic, which disqualifies basically any “game” thread. I also thought “organic” was unambigously used in this context.