# some way to mark Zombie threads? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [February 5, 2011, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253 "2011-02-05T04:14:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/61 "2011-02-07T15:04:40Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Isn’t it possible in vBulletin to have an auto-locking feature. I mean, I thought it’s possible to set it up so that if a new post isn’t made in a thread for, say, 60 days, the thread is locked. I’m not saying you want to do this, but if the goal is really to stop zombie threads, that would be a solution. But the goal is not to stop them. We have, in fact, recently relaxed the rule on zombies, so that we no longer reflexively lock them. One result of this is that a revived thread, once revived, can end up having a whole new second round of discussion. What’s upsetting people is that they don’t realize it’s a second round. ---
**Author:** ![srzss05](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@srzss05](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srzss05)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/62 "2011-02-07T16:24:07Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > What’s upsetting people is that they don’t realize it’s a second round. And, to be quite blunt, if it upsets them it is their own fault. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2011, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/63 "2011-02-07T20:03:40Z")
Moderators adding the word “ZOMBIE” to thread titles won’t do much to make new posters feel welcome in the same way mentioned above about other posters dissing them for it in the thread. Having a mod step in and edit the thread title to warn off possible readers that something might be wrong with it seems like an even less friendly welcome than individual posters making snide comments about it in the thread as is often the case now. It wouldn’t be accurate to do so anyway. Once the thread has been revived if it is getting new reads and replies with on-topic information it has successfully passed from that otherworldly place it existed back into the world of the living, and is once again a current, active, thread. Why should it be branded by moderators or other posters as something to avoid just because a few people have a knee-jerk reaction and resent any participation in any thread that has been inactive for some undefined amount of time? How long is too long? Once it has been bumped off the front page? Six months? Two years? Since this is such a big issue for some I do agree the date stamp could be displayed in something other than a tiny, light gray font. If the date stamp were as visible as the posters name, for example (about 6 times bigger, bold, and underlined) it might help prevent a few zombies from being unintentionally revived, and maybe more importantly it would provide those who are annoyed at reading zombie threads an even more obvious indicator than the current date stamp already provides to them. That seems to be what the zombie haters in this thread are asking for: something to just reach off the page and remind them that they have failed to notice the dates that are already displayed right at the top of every post. Making the date display more prominent might make it easier to notice it for those who just can’t be bothered to read them as they are now (but somehow still resent it when brand new members, making their first-ever posts to the board, don’t read them either) ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/64 "2011-02-08T10:08:32Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > … Just copy & paste the code below into a Greasemonkey script. Works great! For someone who’s never played with other than click and it’s installed GMS it was pretty damned painless. But shouldn’t the instructions (for n00bs like me ;)) be; Highlight and copy the code in the box. Paste the code into a text editor like Notepad. Save the text file (somewhere you can find it, the name doesn’t really matter). Right-click the .txt file and rename it _SDMB highlight old threads.user.js_. Drag it into an open browser that supports GM. Click “Install” on the screen that pops up. Enjoy! CMC fnord! I tweaked the text size :). Which made me curious, what would need to be changed to have it show the number of months too (YMD instead of YD)? I assume it would be a lot easier to use 31 day months, or could you use 30.436875? ---
**Author:** ![Shark\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Shark\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shark_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/65 "2011-02-08T13:24:01Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > … > It wouldn’t be accurate to do so anyway. Once the thread has been revived if it is getting new reads and replies with on-topic information it has successfully passed from that otherworldly place it existed back into the world of the living, and is once again a current, active, thread. Why should it be branded by moderators or other posters as something to avoid just because a few people have a knee-jerk reaction and resent any participation in any thread that has been inactive for some undefined amount of time? How long is too long? Once it has been bumped off the front page? Six months? Two years? > > Since this is such a big issue for some I do agree the date stamp could be displayed in something other than a tiny, light gray font. If the date stamp were as visible as the posters name, for example (about 6 times bigger, bold, and underlined) it might help prevent a few zombies from being unintentionally revived, and maybe more importantly it would provide those who are annoyed at reading zombie threads an even more obvious indicator than the current date stamp already provides to them. > … QFT. I’ve posted comments in threads only to realize after posting that they were Zombies. After doing it a couple of times I’ve been trained to notice the dates now. The problem will solve itself. Also, a quick tip: if you’re reading through the thread (which I’m sure you’re doing before you post) and you notice someone posts a comment about how you just HAVE to run out and see this new movie that just came out in theaters called _Spider-Man_ because it’s “the shizzle,” or how President Bush (either one) is doing a kick-ass job but his VP is a bit of a jerk, you might want to check the date of the thread before posting. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/66 "2011-02-08T14:49:54Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > For those who use Firefox and the Greasemonkey add-on, below is a script I just wrote that warns you in big red letters when the thread you are reading is more than one year old. > > Feel free to use it. Just copy & paste the code below into a Greasemonkey script. Thanks for saving me the trouble. I was about to look into that today. If you want, you can convert that to a regular Firefox addon by uploading it [here](http://arantius.com/misc/greasemonkey/script-compiler). Greasemonkey is my answer for pretty much every annoying thing about the Internet. It works a lot better than trying to convince anyone to actually change anything. ETA[sup]2[/sup]: LOL @ **Shark Sandwich** ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/67 "2011-02-08T14:54:54Z")
Why don’t you promote the people who don’t think adding the Zombie tag is very much work to Zombirators and give them thread title editing privelges and let them do it? ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/68 "2011-02-08T15:00:50Z")
Perhaps we could change, “Read first unread”, to say, “Read first UNDEAD”😃 ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/69 "2011-02-08T15:10:32Z")
Aaarrrggghhhh. “View First Unread” to “View First UNDEAD”. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/70 "2011-02-08T15:11:32Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > I tweaked the text size :). Which made me curious, what would need to be changed to have it show the number of months too (YMD instead of YD)? I assume it would be a lot easier to use 31 day months, or could you use 30.436875? I missed your tiny text. Maybe I can at least be of some assistance. Just find the first line below, and add the next two lines below it. ```auto diff_days = diff_days - 365*diff_years; var diff_months = diff_days / 31; diff_days = diff_days - 31*diff_months; ``` Then change the line that start with “warnStr =” to ```auto warnStr = "
This thread is " + diff_years + " years, " + diff_months + " months, and " + diff_days + " days old!
"; ``` And, yes, you could replace 31 with 30.436875, though I wouldn’t. If you really want to be that exact, you might as well recode that part to handle all the months individually. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/71 "2011-02-08T15:19:50Z")
Where the hell is **Capitaine Zombie**? Shouldn’t he be taking care of this? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/72 "2011-02-08T16:06:39Z")
Is there a way to make the greasemonkey script appear on subsequent pages of a thread? For instance, [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=102179) is a zombie, but the last couple pages don’t trigger the script because the posts on those pages are within the last year. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/73 "2011-02-08T16:54:34Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > Where the hell is **Capitaine Zombie**? Shouldn’t he be taking care of this? Oh that’s why all my posts get taken off, I was wondering. A shame, there were some real treasures of wisdom in the latest ones. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/74 "2011-02-08T16:56:33Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > But in general, I think **zombie** threads are kind of interesting. I concur. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/75 "2011-02-08T19:00:55Z")
I’ve suggested this many times. A small, back-end script that runs on the SQL server nightly or weekly. It looks for open threads where the last message is dated more than XX days ago and marks it closed. It’s an incredibly simple thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![srzss05](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@srzss05](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srzss05)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/76 "2011-02-09T00:24:45Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > I’ve suggested this many times. A small, back-end script that runs on the SQL server nightly or weekly. It looks for open threads where the last message is dated more than XX days ago and marks it closed. It’s an incredibly simple thing to do. But, and this is the big thing (though personally I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it), they don’t want to lock the threads. And apparently there is no easy way to mark them and leave them open (again, I personally don’t see a reason to mark them either). ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/77 "2011-02-09T03:32:02Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > Having a mod step in and edit the thread title to warn off possible readers that something might be wrong with it seems like an even less friendly welcome than individual posters making snide comments about it in the thread as is often the case now. I wanted to expand a little on something related to this, if I might… Before the boards were search-engine indexed, it required a reasonable amount of effort to actually find them in the first place (assuming you weren’t a regular reader of the column if your local paper ran it), so the people that (for the most part) did find their way here had a reasonable knowledge of how discussion boards worked and so on. And because individual threads weren’t as easy to find (unless you were a member), by the time you’d signed up, done a search, found the topic… it just seemed a bit more “obvious” that the topic was old by that point. I’m not saying we shouldn’t encourage new members (quite the opposite!), but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like to encourage them to read a bit more of the boards before blithely wading into a five year old discussion that the key players have long since moved on from. > [@twickster](#): > > But the goal is not to stop them. We have, in fact, recently relaxed the rule on zombies, so that we no longer reflexively lock them. One result of this is that a revived thread, once revived, can end up having a whole new second round of discussion. What’s upsetting people is that they don’t realize it’s a second round. Or that the revived discussion involves a lot of people who are no longer here, have changed their opinions, or simply don’t wish to be reminded of (or re-involved in) something they thought was concluded a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/78 "2011-02-09T03:54:24Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Or that the revived discussion involves a lot of people who are no longer here, have changed their opinions, or simply don’t wish to be reminded of (or re-involved in) something they thought was concluded a long time ago. If it involves a lot of back-and-forth, esp. with people no longer here, we will close them – most of those, however, would be in the category of contentious threads I referred to earlier. (If not in this thread, in one of the many others on the topic over the last few months.) Most of the threads that are revived don’t really require the continued participation of the people who posted in its first life. When they do, if that fact is brought to the attention of the mods, we close them. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/79 "2011-02-09T04:27:23Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Is there a way to make the greasemonkey script appear on subsequent pages of a thread? It would also be cool if there was some way to mark a thread as having a very early OP on the “forumdisplay” list, so you can see it before you click on the link, but that may be impossible if the variable isn’t accessible from that page. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253/80 "2011-02-09T10:21:30Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > It would also be cool if there was some way to mark a thread as having a very early OP on the “forumdisplay” list, so you can see it before you click on the link, but that may be impossible if the variable isn’t accessible from that page. You covered the problem for both of these in one. AFAIK, the information about the first post can only be found by finding it on the page. If it’s not there, Greasemonkey can’t get it. Granted, it wouldn’t be impossible to open the first page of the thread in the background, so **Munch** ’s suggestion is not too hard. But to do your ( **GuanoLad** ’s) request, you’d have to open every thread (or at least the first post) to note when the OP started. It’s a useful suggestion, but highly impractical to actually perform client-side. My reluctance to look at **Munch** ’s request is that it’s kinda against the script’s purpose, as I understand it. The point is to keep you from responding to posts that are older than a certain date. If the first post you see is later than that date, then there’s no problem. It’s a complicated fix without much, if any, benefit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-way-to-mark-zombie-threads/570253.md?page=5)