Oddly, I’ve never viewed a zombie joke that I’ve considered amusing. It’s certainly unwelcoming. If the newbie adds something useless, I guess that’s not a problem. But sometimes I would have preferred if somebody just added:
eg Hi, XXXXXX and welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board. This is an old thread, and past posters may no longer be around to reply. So nobody else is caught unawares, I’m going to add this message: This is a 20XX thread.
No worries XXXXXX and thanks for dropping by! Generally speaking, I think new blood is a good thing and that we’re still running substantially below maximum practical capacity.
I had to go downtown for jury duty a couple weeks ago and was idly checking the provided reading material in the lounge. Imagine my surprise to read about Obama’s reelection campaign. Should I scream at the jury room clerks for wasting my time or should I simply understand that even old magazines are entertaining when there’s nothing else to do?
If what you hear is “screaming” when most of us comment on zombie threads you might want to get your hearing checked. I’ve seen some joking around…pretty much like the joking around that happens when you come across a Newsweek from eight years ago while in a doctor’s waiting room and show it to your friend.
The analogy is perhaps weak but I was trying to make an anti-closing argument, however badly. Closing a thread is one of the more extreme actions a moderator can take just as demanding something Be Done is pretty extreme in the jury lounge. Some call for the automated closure of older threads and mods often close them manually. Some may find enjoyment in replying to and/or reading the old threads, just as you may be fine with reading old news articles. One’s failure to notice the date of a message board thread or magazine article should not be the reason to take that resource away. Wouldn’t it be better to have that 2010 Car & Driver than not? Similarly, I cannot see the harm in leaving these threads up and open.
It sort of reminds me of the post editing debate. Is proofreading your post prior to submission really an unreasonable expectation? And glancing at dates?
FTR my previous and first cognomen was “Cares about zombies.” Of course there’s no way to prove it since that data gets erased and all history is perverted and backwards edited, if you check my name on any any old thread, zombie or not. Kind of Soviet, now that I think of it.
But all those old threads are available for everyone to read and enjoy. If you want to stick with the magazine analogy though, imagine someone writing letters to Time, Newsweek or even Car & Driver issues from ten or more years ago discussing what someone else wrote in those magazines. Would you expect those letters to get published without a few snide remarks from the editors and other readers?
KQED, the San Francisco NPR station, rebroadcasts an hour of the 2 hour call in show late in the evening. They edit the show to note that it won’t do you any good to try to call in for the rebroadcast. Still worth listening to, just not interacting with.
Some topics are timeless, so I wouldn’t block posting on every one.
One thing we could do with zombie threads is see who killed it.
Another thing we could do is understand that sometimes people wind up here because they’ve googled something they’re curious about and were directed here to the wisdom of the SDMB.
Why do you think your stance is an obvious one? There is nothing inherently rude or ridiculous about bumping old threads, so no, the board’s policy isn’t an obvious one. This is the ONLY message board I’ve been on (including those that come up in a Google search for something, so I search and read a bunch of threads in one visit, then leave) that has such a (bizarre, imho) dislike of zombie threads.
Quite frankly, it IS mildly hostile and definitely unwelcoming to ignore a new poster’s contribution or question to instead basically mock them for having the temerity to … post to a thread. I find that more rude than not somehow intuiting that this board has a rather idiosyncratic stance on bumping old threads.
This really isn’t a message board, its a discussion board. There is some time delay, and you aren’t obligated to respond to everyone on every topic. We have a lot of people who have been here years - going on decades - but we also have a lot of turnover - you can’t expect people who haven’t been here for years to pick up the discussion.
As to opening a thread that’s been done a zillion times - it happens. And it can be really streaky (have we had a good Pascal’s Wager thread in a while? Those used to happen every two weeks like clockwork). If its recent, someone will link to it and you can take your contributions over there. I suspect there are few topics we haven’t covered at some point or another…
One problem with zombie threads is that they entice you to click on a link to a website that supposedly features provocative photos of an actress you have a major crush on, only to end up getting a virtual kick in the balls. Now where’s my flamethrower?
Why do you think your stance is an obvious one? There is nothing inherently rude or ridiculous about bumping old threads, so no, the board’s policy isn’t an obvious one. This is the ONLY message board I’ve been on (including those that come up in a Google search for something, so I search and read a bunch of threads in one visit, then leave) that has such a (bizarre, imho) dislike of zombie threads.