Someone posted a Greasemonkey script last year that alerts you to a zombie thread. Sorry - can’t find it at the moment.
I found those scripts (The "Beatin' Up Women" Network - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board and Zombies, again - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board). I’ll see if they still work.
But really, that’s far from an ideal solution.
Seems like srzss05 helped scuttle one of those old threads back then too. The topic has arisen independently several times because, I assume, there’s a lot more people who dislike zombie threads than those who both know how to use Greasemonkey and know how to find the scripts.
If I had access to vBulletin source code, I’d submit a patched code snippet… one way or another, I hope they’d seriously consider this. It’ll take a decent programmer all of an hour to implement.
Eeps, I messed up a link. That first one should be:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13438467&postcount=60 (the original link went to a thread about abusive women networks because I deleted a digit)
I’m not opposed to it, and indeed I think it is a good idea, IF it can be done without a lot of trouble on the part of the admins. However, it seems that TPTB are the ones who either believe nothing can be done, or that it is too much trouble for very little gain.
ETA—note their conspicuous absence in this thread.
Ah! Oh well, my bad. I responded to one about Monty Python non-squitters. I try not to do that, but I get so wrapped up in reading that I sometimes forget to check.
Q
I have been advocating for years that SDMB needs to develop a small SQL script that runs once a week. It would look for threads that have no posting activity for XX days (at least 180) and marks them as being closed. Voila. No more zombie resurrections.