We DESPERATELY need a policy for zombies! I just posted in a “ask the dermatologist” thread, only to notice it was 5 years old! :rolleyes: Here is the policy I propose: NO “reanimating” a thread until you have 100 posts. Plenty of time to learn about the Dope and our culture, as it relates to thread atitudes. Also gets rid of spammers/Googlers quicker.
No we don’t.
IMHO, of course.
So defend the status quo. :dubious:
How is this supposed to be enforced? Most of the time the resurrection is by a first time poster who wouldn’t have read all of the rules. So now what? Warn them? Ban them? Most of them never come back to participate anyway. What would your rule accomplish?
The real crime is the way they hide the dates of all these posts. How is a long time poster like yourself supposed to have any idea how old a thread is unless they have some kind of a date stamp on them? 
But don’t worry, there’s a script for that.
If we ALSO deleted the “ressurecting” post, it would “kill” the zombie.
Not if a there were a bunch of follow up posts before a mod got to it including the inevitable tired zombie jokes which is a near certainty.
Maybe add to the software to recognize a “ressurection”, or alternately, more Mods to police the board.
The staff here had made it very clear, and with good reason, that they don’t want to run add-ons here. Not gonna happen even if such a thing existed.
More mods for the reason that zombie threads make you sad? Really?
They don’t make me SAD! Don’t be so condescending, you’re better than that (I hope), they detract from the board IMHO! :rolleyes:
If we ever solve the zombie problem then we will have a never ending stream of link posts that say “there was already a thread on that.”
Bad solution to a problem that isn’t really much of a problem.
How 'bout this for a rule:
*
If you’re posting here, you either take 2 seconds (literally) to look in the upper left corner of the OP to check the date and decide whether you want to post; or quit the SDMB and find a message board that doesn’t expect you to take 2 seconds of responsibility for your own posts. *
We have enough rules here to choke a hippo, we don’t need new ones to “protect”* people who can’t be bothered to look in the upper left corner of the op. Take some responsibility for your own posts.
*And while we’re at it, what the fuck difference does it make if the post was 5 years old or not? If you had something constructive to add, then for fuck’s sake, add it. If you were just doing a "Me too < hug > " post, you shouldn’t have posted that drivel in the first place. The age of the post is irrelevant to that.
How about no reviving zombie threads unless you have an avatar.
<snerk>
It used to be that all zombies were closed immediately. The general consensus of users was they did NOT want that policy and would prefer that the zombie thread stay open, except under specific circumstances. The mods changed the policy to what we see here based on user wishes.
I don’t know if that helps or not, but the complaints about leaving zombie threads alone and open were equally loud and passionate.
We have a policy for zombie threads. They’re officially allowed.
As a side note, I’ve seen a hack that can help deal with them, but I know TPTB won’t install hacks here, so I’m not going to bother typing it out for the third time.
Personally, I think it’s more annoying to see everyone complaining about them, then to see the threads themselves. I honestly don’t see how they bother anyone at all. Sure, it’s a bit jarring to see some old names pop up, and often times they’re reanimated by people that don’t understand how message boards work that are tacking on questions that have nothing to do with anything. But making a ‘rule’ against them isn’t going to stop any of that. It’ll just justify all the complaining.
It’s like that annoying song on the radio. Sure that song is on for the 18th time today…quietly in the background. But what’s more annoying is the girl that won’t shut up every time it comes on about how much she hates it.
Here’s a Google search of the SDMB for ‘zombie threads’ it’s page after page of mostly ATMB threads of people asking the same question.
Back when zombie threads were immediately locked, it seemed like people were asking why they can’t stay open.
Personally, I don’t see who they are hurting (as long as aren’t opening some ancient thread just to restart an old argument) by restarting an old discussion. Though I do agree, I think it happens by accident more often then on purpose. It would be nice if VB would install something to deal with this.
I don’t see how your proposed solution would be relevant to this particular situation – you have 100 posts.
As others have pointed out, we have relaxed the no-zombie policy, and only close them when there’s a particular reason to (acrimonious threads, esp. those involving people no longer posting here, for instance). That seems to be working pretty well, except a few people don’t like the policy.
We are never, ever, going to have a policy, rule, guideline, or expectation around here that everyone is going to be able to agree with 100 percent. Even “don’t be a jerk” regularly gets parsed and nitpicked from here to next Sunday.
Well, you could do what I do and read the date on threads before posting.
ETA: I like the occasional zombie popping up.