As has been pointed out, we generally do this but once the spam post that bumped them has been removed you don’t see such threads because they float down to the abyss from which they were raised.
I personally often lock such threads in GQ because the fact that they were raised by a spammer once (because they found it due to the subject matter) makes it likely that another spammer will raise it again. I started doing this after seeing a thread that had been bumped about a dozen times year after year.
My impression is that many more people are annoyed by leaving zombie threads open than by us closing them. At least, it seems to me that more people complain about this.
There are downsides to any inflexible policy, whether always closing old threads or always leaving them open. The policy used to be to almost always close old threads. Our current policy is more flexible. We consider this to be a reasonable compromise.
Neat. I’m trying to collect all the scripts, even if I don’t use them all. I personally just use one by Polonius that attempts to detect an old thread on the thread list page, before you click on it. I’ve tweaked it over the years, and I find it sufficient.
And, yeah, it’s been years. Can you believe it?
(BTW, would you want to see a version I tweaked to run at document-start [before the page loads]?.)
Don’t know. Could be lots of reason. Besides, it’s irrelevant since the rule seems to, at least in part, be based on an arbitrary time since the OP last logged in, not last read the board. For all you know, they subscribed to the thread, got a message that it was bumped and now can’t reply.
Like I said earlier, I lurk on a handful of boards that I don’t actively post to any more (GB being one of them). The last active date only means the last time you were signed in.
I dont think that matters. What does matter is the LAST post date. if you are adding the first post in a year, rethink. Maybe if it is a good GQ answer, go ahead and post, otherwise maybe not.
Another zombie tip-off that I’ve noticed in Tapatalk: on some really old threads, a little green box with the letters “OP” displays in place of the user names.
Yup. BANNED posters or, not brilliant but “hey, they’re posting what I was thinking of post- - - oh, that’s me”. At least it’s good to know that I’m consistent.
He’s only with us physically. He’s in the large stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Interestingly, his final album was just released last month. It was recorded in 2012, just after his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
And what if you didn’t check that box?
What if you got a new computer?
What if you reset your cache?
What if the board software logged you out?
What if, for your own personal reasons, you still wanted to read the boards, but didn’t want to be logged in so you purposely logged out and didn’t log back in?
Are you honestly trying to argue that a member of a board can’t read it without signing in?
There’s hundreds of millions of people on the internet, suggesting that none of them could continue to lurk on a board that they used to post to on a regular basis without signing in because of the “remember me” box, despite so many other possibilities, is Mythbusters logic.
As for why, it doesn’t matter why, the fact is that they can. I felt I gave perfectly good reasons why it may happen by accident and on purpose, even good reasons why I’ve done it myself (board software logged me out, never cared to log back in or post, but still read there).
Of all the things I’ve banged my head against a wall about when it comes to zombie threads, I never thought I’d have to explain to anyone that you can actually read these message boards without being logged in.
I know you can. And I’m not really trying to be obtuse. But if you’re a regular long-time member, why? Why lurk all of a sudden, after years of membership? Your experiences really don’t apply to everyone else as a whole.
In other words, why decide to log out all of a sudden, and not log back in? And yes, I do realize that there are people who prefer not to have a message board store their cookies and would rather log in each time. I’m not one of those people.
