[disclaimer]This sure seems like a wimpy Pit topic. I wouldn’t be here at all, but the “rules” say any complaints need to be in the Pit, so I figure if I put it in About this Board, someone would move it here anyway…[/disclaimer]
Not too long ago I was chewed out for posting to an older thread. Today I noticed someone else was – diplomatically – chastised for same. And that thread ended up Threadspotted!!!
Anyhow, I wonder why someone can’t just write a little program to close any thread older than – you pick an age – and run it every day or every week or every month or whatever? How hard would that be? Then we minions wouldn’t have to observe or think (what, me think?)… if you can post, it’s okay; and if it’s not okay, you just won’t be able to.
How about it?
No more complaints about posting to old threads. No more complaints about complaining about posting to old threads. No more complaints about complaining about complaining about posting to old threads. No more complaints about complaining about complaining about complaining about posting to old threads. No more – (bang!)
I find it amusing that someone with your user name is ranting about zombie threads.
Some of them are classics, and deserve to be bumped once in awhile to be enjoyed by newbies. Some are accidentally bumped, and some are bumped by trolls to cause trouble. And some threads, like in Cafe Society, it’s okay to bump.
If it’s an egregious case, a mod will lock it down. But you can’t expect them to archive and lock every old thread, can you? That’s a lot of work.
If the thread itself is a metaphor for the issue, then, wow! Maybe in a couple years, someone will post here again!
Hey, I think it’s fine to resurrect old threads, but it appears to offend a significant segment of the population.
Irony, irony! Part of the problem is folks (including me) don’t notice things like the date of the last post. Here, you missed my carefully crafted suggestion – someone write and run a program that just blanket closes all threads older than <x>.
Just proves my point. We aren’t capable of policing ourselves. If the powers that be are concerned (and they must be, if it’s in the FAQ), they should do something about it and not yell at us!
It depends on what your resurrecting. If it’s in Cafe Society to talk about how you finally saw Chicago, that’s one thing. But to bring up a Pit thread with a six-page pile on that died a natural death just to add your two cents, well, the issue is over and done with.
I’ve missed dates too. But since I rarely go past the first two pages of active threads I don’t normally perform voodoo on old threads.
As a general rule, the tech staff does not and will not implement any hacks to the vBulletin board software. The hack has to be very, very useful for it to be implemented. This particular situation doesn’t occur often enough to warrant such a hack being written and implemented.
What always gets me about reviving old threads is the “Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t” paradigm:
Revive it and get blasted: “AAAggghh! Zombie thread!” and such.
Start a new one and get blasted: “We’ve covered that here <link> and here <link> already; try to keep up, dumbshit.”
I think you’re exaggerating. If it happens quite a bit, can you provide a couple of links to these posts? And I don’t mean posts where someone merely pointed out the existence of a previous thread, I mean posts where there was an insult thrown in too. I just don’t think it happens enough to be a problem, if it even happens at all.
We’ve had a change in policy on this, so reference to old rulings is probably not helpful. The general guideline (it’s not a rule, it’s a guideline) about resurrection was that the original posters are often not around any more and can’t reply. Plus, if it was some long-dead Pit issue, why pick at a scab? And, finally, it was often a way of tracking socks or people who had been banned and tried to return, as they would resurrect their pet old threads. Lots of good reasons for not allowing resurrections.
We have re-thought the policy in a few forums. Those reasons are not really relevant in Comments on Cecil’s Column or Comments on Staff Reports, for instance. Ditto Cafe Society. They tend to be far more relevant in IMHO, The Pit, and MPSIMS. Hence, we now have different policies in different forums. (I’m not sure off the top of my head what was done in GQ, and I don’t want to spend the time looking, check with those forum moderators.)
When we went to pay-subscription, guests can’t search, so they can’t resurrect old threads.
Yes, during the initial change there was a bit of confusion the part of both members and moderators, so there was a bit of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” I think that’s settled out now, so that there’s a fairl clear policy going forward.
If the thread itself is a metaphor for the issue, then, wow! Maybe in a couple years, someone will post here again!
