Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I checked the FAQs but didn't see anything regarding necroposting. The closest I saw was a FAQ regarding Bumping. Is there any policy?
I ask because it seems as if there has been a rash of it in the last few days. Often the threads are interesting but, in my opinion, should be just started over, rather than dredged up.
Mods and other fellow posters, which do you feel is more beneficial to the CD community as a whole? Necroposting or starting a new thread?
"Necroposting" (the way I've always understood it) means taking a thread that's been dead for quite some time (several months, or maybe even a year or more) and bumping it with a new post. Often, the people who made and contributed to the original thread aren't even active on the forums anymore. Often, the circumstances cited in the original thread are no longer relevant, even though the topic itself may be.
I was wondering if there was a policy about reviving long-dead threads. Many forums I frequent would prefer that, if a thread is, say, 3 months without a new post, that a new thread is started.
I believe it's better to post in an old, long thread about a topic than to start a new one and cause people to waste bandwidth remaking previously-made observations. Considering how evergreen much of the subject matter is in the local boards, I fail to see why this is objectionable.
The technical capability exists for the administrators to have the board automatically lock threads that are more than X days old. The fact that they don't enable that capability implies that they prefer us to recycle.
I've locked some resurrected threads because the information was woefully out-of-date. Most were over a year old and the previously posted information was no longer accurate.
In the local board for my city, we are plagued with people who post threads requesting basic newcomer information, or information on the best places to live in the city. If they'd just search the forum and read those old threads, they'd find the answers to their questions 99% of the time. Even if old threads don't have the exact answer, updating one of those threads to ask a clarifying question would be infinitely better than starting a new thread.
Recycling's also better because it takes advantage of the boards "Subscribed Threads" feature. If someone is subscribed to an old thread that gets updated by a new post, they will be notified so they can jump back into the discussion. This board is a community of over a million people. We should try to use it in ways that are respectful of the many ways that people use the features here.
This topic seems to come up every few months. IMO it depends on what the thread topic is, but in most cases I think it's best to post in the old thread, as the information within is most likely still pertinent (ex. threads about a town, about a TV show, etc.).
Location: The Circle City. Sometimes NE of Bagdad.
24,554 posts, read 26,114,306 times
Reputation: 60015
I guess the only problem I have with this is when the last post is responding to the OP or another poster that only has 1 or 2 posts and hasn't responded or aknowledged any comments. See this very often.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
