Zombie threads, can anything be done?

[Fenris]

Actually that’s not the issue–I don’t think it would be bad to put the date in the forum list or, hell, in search results either.

But that won’t solve the problem of people who are incapable of reading the date when it’s in the OP. If they can’t do that, they also won’t manage to see it in the forum or search list. It won’t solve the problem of “zombie” threads, because the problem is 100% on the user side.

[Senegoid]

@Fenris

Actually that’s not the issue–I don’t think it would be bad to put the date in the forum list or, hell, in search results either.

But that won’t solve the problem of people who are incapable of reading the date when it’s in the OP. If they can’t do that, they also won’t manage to see it in the forum or search list. It won’t solve the problem of “zombie” threads, because the problem is 100% on the user side.

You’re just assuming that all the rest of SDMB users are morons, when in fact only some of them are. Thus, putting the OP date on the thread list will eliminate some (perhaps a great many) of the zombie problems even if not all of them. Would that not be an improvement?

[Senegoid]

Yes, we need to put the OP date on the thread list page so the relevant people have a better chance of seeing it before re-animating a zombie.

See this thread, started in 6/16/2001, dormant since 6/17/2001, re-animated today (7/27/2012) by [see thread to see who (and why)] in Post #9.

Q.E.D.

[Crazyhorse]

@Senegoid

See this thread, started in 6/16/2001, dormant since 6/17/2001, re-animated today (7/27/2012) by [see thread to see who (and why)] in Post #9.

That is just one of many hilarious thread resurrections to happen lately. I would hate to lose zombies. But in this case a spammer probably reopened the thread and that post got deleted. So all we see is the forum change and ensuing hilarity. The spammer wouldn’t have noticed or cared even if there was a 36 point bold, red flashing date field next to the thread. (or an already visible, grayish 12 point datestamp at the top of every post).

[Senegoid]

@Crazyhorse

That is just one of many hilarious thread resurrections to happen lately. I would hate to lose zombies. But in this case a spammer probably reopened the thread and that post got deleted. So all we see is the forum change and ensuing hilarity. The spammer wouldn’t have noticed or cared even if there was a 36 point bold, red flashing date field next to the thread. (or an already visible, grayish 12 point datestamp at the top of every post).

These “hilarious thread resurrections”, this one and that one mentioned earlier, taken together, expose the dangers of 11 years of eating FAT JUICY MUSHROOMS!

[ZenBeam]

@Fenris

Ain’t gonna happen because why would you expect people who are all butthurt about the starting dates of thread yet STILL choose to not look at the date on the OP to look at the date on the thread list page?

I’m not butthurt about Zombie threads, and really don’t care if older threads get re-opened. But I sometimes already do find myself looking for the start date on the thread list page, even though it’s never been there. If the date were there, I’d check it. I think it’d be an easy habit to get into.

Once I’ve gone into a thread, I’m immediately drawn to the words, and skip right over the post dates.

IF it’s really as easy as changing a setting that already exists, it seems it would be pretty easy to change that setting and see if it helps. No need for all these posts in all these threads, when a simple experiment could be performed.

[ZenBeam]

@Senegoid

See this thread, started in 6/16/2001, dormant since 6/17/2001, re-animated today (7/27/2012) by [see thread to see who (and why)] in Post #9.

Until I hear a definitive explanation, I’m assuming one mod deleted the poster who reanimated the thread, while another mod moved the thread.

[Crazyhorse]

@ZenBeam

Once I’ve gone into a thread, I’m immediately drawn to the words, and skip right over the post dates.

There have already been several user scripts offered that will warn users if the date of a post or thread is older than a certain amount of time.

Here is a very simple one that allows you to set the font, size, color, and style of the datestamp that appears at the top of all posts to anything you want. Screenshot here.

I don’t mind zombies and I’ve never felt slighted for having opened one, but for those who find the default SDMB datestamp difficult to read this script has got what you need if you use Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. (firefox and safari both require a browser add-on for user scripts, Chrome supports them natively).

It can be installed with one click from here, or the code below can be copied and pasted into a new script for those already familiar with creating scripts.

// ==UserScript==
// @name           SDMB Bold Dates
// @namespace      SDMB_Bold_Dates
// @description    SDMB Bold Dates
// @include        http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/*
// ==/UserScript==

(function() 
 {
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

  var font = "Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif";   // font choices at http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_websafe_fonts.asp

  var color = "Black";    // color choices at http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_colornames.asp 

  var size = "9";    // font size in points

  var bold="bold";   // either "normal" or "bold"

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

  var dateareas = document.getElementsByClassName('normal');
  var datecount = dateareas.length;
  for(var i = 0; i < datecount; i++)
   {
     if (dateareas*.innerHTML.search("date") > 1)
     {
    dateareas*.innerHTML = dateareas*.innerHTML.replace(dateareas*.innerHTML, "<DIV STYLE='font-size : " + size + "pt; font-family : " + font + "; color : " + color + "; font-weight : " + bold + "'>" + dateareas*.innerHTML + "<DIV>");
    }
  }
})();