Part of it is that we’re not nice to newbies.
I realize that this is an unpopular opinion and that I’m insignificant but I’ve always disagreed with the reflexive closing of old bumped threads or what we call zombies. Some rando SDMB candidate searches for something weird and bumps into an interesting thread. It may have been one I’d missed or an oldie that I’d forgotten about or maybe about a topic I’ve since learned a lot more about. Contribute? Nope. Closed: old. But OP can always start a new thread, haha, right? Naw, very few of these highly potential dopers come back and why would they after that frosty introduction? That additional data they might have had had is pretty much gone forever.
For the same reason you didn’t join until yesterday.
And what do you mean, “nostalgic”?
If it were more popular no-one would like it.
It means we are old people.
When I showed up the first time I posted something “nice” and was clobbered by the grouches and cynics on the board. I ran away for a year or so (maybe it was only months). But I came back because… <mind drifts away> …
This sums it up for me, too.
It isn’t well advertised. Most people don’t know about it.
Yeah, that seems weird to me, too. Why close a thread just because it’s old?
Every time this question arises, I compare this site to Reddit, which is vastly larger but also much younger; it was founded in 2005. Now I’m not on Reddit, so I may be incorrect but the site seems to allow subreddits to be created freely. Contrast that with the SDMB where new subforums are created only rarely, especially under previous management. (Which is why I was surprised that The Quarantine Zone was created so quickly.) And Reddit deploys new software and features as needed or desired, again, not something that happens here. (We’ve known for years that the vBulletin software was inadequate but nothing was ever done about it.)
Well, a couple of good reasons are they are full of dead links, long-gone posters who will not respond.
Wanna talk about that topic? Start a new thread, interact with people who are still here and can contribute timely opinions, cites and links.
That’s not really how it works. Bumping an old thread with new and relevant information is typically just fine.
When you bump an old thread with nothing really new or interesting to add the thread will usually get closed.
Particularly if said thread is in the Pit.
Hey! Are you telling me I’m not “cutting edge?”
(snorts and stamps off to put an Annette Hanshaw record on the phonograph)
I agree with this.
I’d like to add that in general, I appreciate the slightly “not-nice” tone here. I used to participate on one message board that was full of smiley faces and “Hope that helps!!” and “Have a great day!!”, and it was just not how my friends and I interact in person and not how I wanted to interact with people online. On this board, the knowledge that you should think before you speak because people aren’t just going to smiley-face away ignorant comments makes it a place where I’d like to settle down and stay a while. (The Liberal hive mind doesn’t make me want to settle down and stay, but let’s not get into that.)
But I would imagine that Google is one of the primary way that a new person comes across the site and decides to start participating. And often when an old thread crops up, I enjoy reading it even though it’s old. I’d prefer we leave the zombies open as a general rule.
I think it’s a combination of a few things:
[ul]
[li]Not “nice” to newbies. This is something we can work on, IMO.[/li][li]Unforgiving in general; you’d better have your “A” game on if you’re going to post in threads about anything controversial - politics, social justice, abortion, etc… Otherwise people are going to wreck your arguments and make you feel foolish.[/li][li]A pronounced leftward slant. Not that it’s bad in and of itself, but combined with the previous two, and I can completely see how it might drive off anyone who’s not firmly left of center who isn’t also an old-timer.[/li][li]It’s a message board, not some sort of social media type site. It’s kind of unfriendly to mobile devices, even with Tapatalk.[/li][li]It’s markedly intellectual. Even without the unforgiving nature, it’s still a place whose space is almost entirely intellectual. Most people are NOT intellectual.[/li][/ul]
There are others I’m sure, but these five are the ones that came immediately to mind.
actually, in most special interest boards I go/went to if it’s on a specific topic the thread only lasts a week or two before its automatically closed by the software … heck some of them closed if there wasn’t a response in 8 hours or less … but 90 percent of the time in old threads the op along with most posters are long gone and they just become spam magnets
of course, you also get the effect of you post the same thing to the same thread because you forgot you posted to it 4 years earlier like I did in the "funny and horrible ad&d dice rolls " thread that still pops up everyso often
Right, I would prefer these be left open.
This is a thing many people miss. Sure, you can ask Google. But will you get anything truthful? I.e., will you get the Straight Dope.
I think columns by people who do research, sift out the glurge and write it up clearly are still worthwhile.
But a once-a-week column often with questions sent in months earlier is not going to rack up the eyeballs. It’s gotta be topical. And do we have a topic right now.
The reason I like The Dope, and the reason Google doesn’t always cut it, is because we add commentary and other added-value items. Google gives you directions - The Dope tells you why those directions are wrong, gives you three alternatives, four puns and a deranged counter-argument from the cheap seats.