The problem is google and the poor search function on the boards. These threads are being resurrected because it is much easier and effective to search this site with google rather than the board search. The board search is excruciating. It takes a long time and your can’t really refine your search because you can do only one search every 2 minutes. However google does not arrange results by last post. So you get a lot of old threads coming up in searches. Unless there is auto locking of old threads I think we are stuck with zombie onslaught.
Personally, I find the zombie onslaught not so bad. If they become more frequent then I might change my mind.
If you do that, you’re keeping it alive. The OP specified dead threads: threads that haven’t been posted to or viewed for five years or more. Bumping a thread every month makes it that thread that gets bumped every month. What’s irritating is when a thread title is completely unfamiliar, you think it’s a new topic, and then you see handy’s name on a post and :smack:
I’ve seen a few necro threads lately and while I have not made it a point to document each case my sense was they were revived by new members. My guess is someone was Googling on some topic of interest to them and they came across an old thread here. Either they did not pay attention to the date or they did not know a necro thread is frowned upon but felt they wanted to comment on it.
In the end I give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe politely point out it is a very old thread and welcome them to the SDMB.
The thing that annoys me is why are some threads being brought back. Like one was brought back about choosing a dress to attend a wedding. Seriously! WTF?! A lot of threads that are being brought back are very inane. Like one was brought about Welsh prejudice. It’s annoying to click on a thread and see a ton of replies from the same day and either reply or click the beginning and see it was rom 2003. So, I think threads and polls should be locked once there’s no new reply in say I dunno a year.
Don’t you feel a little, I don’t know, uncomfortable, joining a board and only a couple months later judging people on what they contribute and whether the board’s rules about zombies and such are to your liking?
A quick search of the OPs record since her join time suggests that no, she doesn’t feel badly. At all. But I imagine she was an irritating person long before she joined the boards.
One can make the argument that some people who have been posting here for 10 years are in the same boat. And, as someone else said, you are a strange one to bring this up.
Seriously, though, it’s going to happen on any board that doesn’t lock old threads. And it isn’t a new “problem”. I can remember people doing this from as far back as 1998 (when I first entered the “wonderful” world of the Internets).
Honestly, though, people who start threads about stupid and silly shit like complaining about zombie threads aren’t contributing much to the dope. So, we could do without those members.
