Will I ever remember to look at the date on the first post of a thread?
No, what generally happens is I get interested in the long conversation before noticing an innocent reply by a poster who is BANNED. Then I think, I wonder why they are banned? They don’t seem to be doing anything wrong here–
Look at the date posted. It was several years ago. Oh.
Sometimes, I see that the extremely clever poster who has just posted exactly what I was going to say is, in fact, Tamex. :smack:
I used to not be bothered by zombie threads. I’m still not so much when the threads are not so long and the new poster actually has some new information. However, when the threads are huge and they died because everyone has already said anything that could possibly be said and the newbie posted something that was already said fifty posts ago…yeah.
Yeah, I know. Sometimes it’s a poster who I remember but who flamed out later. It’s seeing their name with BANNED under it that jars me into the reality that I am in fact reading a zombie thread.
The same thing happens to me as well, although I usually notice that it is a zombie when I read down to the latest posts and see a zombie joke (I have made one or two myself) or I want to reply to an older comment and notice the date when I look at it again. Not that being a zombie prevents me from posting if others have also posted; I figure that if everybody else is reviving it, then I can do so without any zombie jokes, but not if only the reviver has posted unless I include a zombie joke.
I’ve recently got into the habit of looking at the date of the first post. If it’s more than a few years old I’ll close the thread and not go back to it.
Zombie threads annoy me too, especially if I think I’m about to jump into an epic debate with dozens of posters, and realize that only two of the posters have written in the past 5 years. It’s like arriving at a party the morning after; the needle spinning endlessly on the inside of the record, ashtrays overflowing, empty glasses (some lipstick stained) on every surface, a leg broken off of the coffee table, shoe prints marching inexplicably across the ceiling… And that disappointing feeling that you missed it.
…On another note, this looks like a good place to ask a question I’ve pondered for a while now:
How do most zombie threads get started in the first place? Do people somehow flip back 300 pages without realizing it and start posting?
Too bad.