A certain poster has decided to continuously revive very old, very dead threads for some reason. As far as being that person’s one trick it certainly is an annoying one. If you want to be Capt. Wayback fine-- but stop posting to bump 2 year old threads already. Yeesh.
:rolleyes:
Drop me a line, please, and let me know who’s doing it. The poster in question needs a clue. I’m trying to catch up on stuff that I let slip while I was sick.
Gonna check things out, thanks.
email sent.
Going by your cite - the poster went to the thread from another thread about classic threads/history of SDMB stuff. Such a thread is likely to cause some accidents.
I know some time back I revived a couple of ancient threads after following a link to them in a more modern-day thread. I didn’t mean to - it’s just that when you have several browser windows open at once you sometimes forget where you are, and the date is often the last thing I remember to look at (if at all) when posting a quick reply.
Since Lynn knows about it and has my email I would prefer to let the Mods handle this- but FWIW that was Cite 1 of a couple of cites.
Ah OK 
Why can’t a person open old threads?
Open, yes. Post to (i.e., bump), not necessarily good.
There are some that just don’t need to be bumped. Some cover issues that are dead and have been for a long time (such as personal Pit threads); others have been rehashed a zillion times in the meantime and are just not needed.
If you have something new to add to a thread, then it’s sometimes best to start a whole new one if the old one was a long time ago, rather than just bumping it (you could even link to the old one in the new thread).
Yeah I did that a few times when I thought that the only threads were the old threadspotting things. But how is that a bad thing? I mean, if I wrote a thread that was killed in the prime of life, I’d be happy to see it living again.
It’s confusing for the staff and can also be for the members. You see a thread with all these posts by usernames that you thought don’t come to the board anymore, and you say to yourself “Hey! XYZ is back!” For the staff, who are supposed to read each thread, it’s confusing to have to figure out where the new posts start and the old posts end.
Don’t revive a very old thread. Start a new one and link to the old one.
Could you give some ballpark of very old? If a thread is, say, three months old, can we start a new one? Or would you cut us some slack if we start a new thread only to discover that there was a similar one three months ago?
Depends on the situation. Seems like being flip in a week-old thread is a no-no in some cases.
Thanks, Jeff. That answers my question.
I thinking more of a general question that you search and you find a thread that answers most of your question, why not just post a new question in the thread? Why start a new thread? Especially, if you just want clarification of an answer in the original thread.
Because your new thread’s title would be more specific than the old thread’s title - specific to your unanswered question. Those people who had seen the old one would know something new was afoot; they might ignore it if they thought it was just the same old thread.
:eek:
It’s ME!
::hangs head in quiet, remorseful, sad shame::
IANA mod or admin, but I’ve got a few personal suggestions, which of course have no official standing, and should therefore be taken with the appropriate shaker or two of salt. And disregarded, should the board come up with a policy on the matter.
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I’d say there’s no need to revive any thread that’s been inactive for six months or more. If you really think bumping such a thread is preferable to opening a new thread and linking, I’d check with a mod first.
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The admins clearly prefer it if we don’t resurrect old wars. (A very sensible preference, IMHO.) In keeping with that, old Pit threads probably shouldn’t be bumped after more than a week or so. Less, if mods have already gotten involved in the thread in an official capacity.
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If it’s a thread in another forum that became a knock-down, drag-out affair, or a dogpile-on-some-poster thing, but somehow didn’t manage to get moved to the Pit, I’d say use the same standards as with Pit threads. If it started off as a rational debate, request for information, etc., and turned heated, bumping it after it’s sunk from view isn’t likely to be the best way to resume the original fight against ignorance. A fresh thread will have much better odds.
I didn’t intentionally post to bump the two year old thread, I just had a question I wanted to ask and didn’t see the date. Forgive me.