What's the sense of "Do not post into threads inactive for X months" forums rule?

[Hisymak]

I am member of various forums related to Doom, other games and such (including Doomworld, ZDoom forums) and most forums generally have the rule like "Do not make new posts and replies into threads which are inactive for X months/years".

This is something I don't feel can always be beneficial, and I have a bit different personal view about it. Maybe I don't completely understand the purpose and sense of such rule, so I'd like to clarify and discuss about that there. I'm personally trying not to break this rule in Doomworld and other forums where it's explicitly said (just in order not to get myself into trouble), but I'd like to discuss about some cases when I'm tempted to break this rule (and if it would be okay to do so), or when I would actually be happy if others broke the rule.

 

So there are different kinds of topics in this forum, I would split them to "discussion" and "project-related" topics.

The usual discussion topic in this forums has mostly such life time: Somebody creates a topic, and if it's interesting enough, lot of posts are made during a day or a few days. After that, the thread calms down, a few more posts are made within one more week or two, and then the thread becomes inactive and no more posts are ever made into it. So basically a regular Doomworld discussion thread's life time is a few days or weeks. Then other threads are made about different topics, and the same process repeats again. Also to note, that threads about same/similar topics are repeating over and over during years, with some time spaces between them.

Now let's imagine these cases:

1) I have an interesting idea I would like to discuss. I can just simply create a new thread - which is the most usual and comfortable scenario people do. However, the same idea could have been already discussed in past, and with some additional effort, I could manage to find an old thread with same or similar topic. What should I do now? Can I go and make a new post into the old thread? (of course only if my post makes sense and adds a new value into existing discussion). OR it's more correct to just forget about the old thread and create a brand new one about the same?

2) I randomly browse through forums, and run into a very interesting thread with interesting discussion, and feel very excited about contributing into the discussion. However, the thread is X years old and inactive, so is it ok to bring a new life into that thread and possibly make it a good discussion once again?

 

I am occasionally creating various threads myself, and all of them end up inactive after some time. Sometimes, but very rarely, I get a notification that somebody replied (or at least reacted) into some of my older threads which has been forgotten for long. And for me, it's actually something NICE to see - I'm happy somebody discovered my old thread and took his time to contribute into it. When such thing happens, sometimes other people will add up and make another posts, which leads into second life time of my thread, and I can read through new interesting ideas or things. I definitely don't think the person who "necro-posted" my thread did something bad (even if he "technically" broke the rule), but contrarily, I feel thankful and happy for continuation of my topic.

I am also member of some forums with very sparse activity - there are days with no posts at all, but also days with more posts, but on average it can be like 10-20 posts per week (such example is Commander Keen forum). In those forums, this rule would be completely useless. There, we are actually happy for ANY activity at all, it does not matter if it's a brand new thread, or a new post into years old thread. I feel happy and thankful for new members, and those people making new fresh posts into a thread I (or somebody else) initiated years ago.

 

Regarding project-related threads. I see that there's mostly said "Do not ask about whether the project is still active, when it will be finished etc.". I agree that those are just useless bumps, which don't add any value, but only spam the forum and people. However, what if I have some serious question, interesting comment, or just would like appreciate the project and say which part/level/music track etc. I liked? That was for example Back to Saturn X E2 I played through and after that I wanted to comment it and ask about something, but as far as the thread was inactive for longer time, I didn't do that, and I felt like creating a whole new thread would be useless. I think it's a pity. I think that if the project's thread is still continued and active even long time after project is finished and with long time gaps between posts, it brings more value to the project's lifetime, forums and whole community. New people could easier discover the old project and play through it and enjoy it and express their opinion, and project creators would still get some feedback and motivation.

I myself made some projects, and the project's threads were active for a little while, and then ended up inactive. I can see that download count is still slowly growing over time, so definitely some people still find my project and take the effort to download it and try it out. I just wish one day I would get a notification that someone made a post there (a question, comment, or just an appreciation) and that would bring back some attention and interest, and maybe even I would get some motivation to do some update (if applicable).

When I open a very old thread on Doomworld, there's a notice that this thread is very old and people involved could not even be there anymore and able to reply. That's fine, such notice should have rather informational character. If I still decide to make a new post, I either might or might not get a reply, that's something I count with.

[MrFlibble]

I don't remember visiting any forum where the rule against necroposting would be strictly enforced, regardless of the possible circumstances when reviving an old thread is justified or even desirable.

 

Of course, there are special cases like forums where people seek tech support or advice, and making a new topic for a specific problem could be mandatory as opposed to trying to "hijack" an old thread about a different problem, even if it might be similar or related.

 

5 hours ago, Hisymak said:

I have an interesting idea I would like to discuss. I can just simply create a new thread - which is the most usual and comfortable scenario people do. However, the same idea could have been already discussed in past, and with some additional effort, I could manage to find an old thread with same or similar topic. What should I do now? Can I go and make a new post into the old thread? (of course only if my post makes sense and adds a new value into existing discussion). OR it's more correct to just forget about the old thread and create a brand new one about the same?

The answer to this is highly dependent on context, but I'd say that if the existing topic with a similar theme is rather old, it'd be better to start the discussion afresh, possibly using the old thread as some kind of reference, if there are interesting or valuable ideas there which you want to focus on.

 

I believe that there are often clues which help tell if a previous discussion has exhausted itself/reached a conclusion or not, but in some cases bumping an old topic would be inappropriate simply because the original participants are no longer actively visiting the forum. If a discussion is over, sometimes even saying something relevant might not be a justification because, well, you cannot contribute to a discussion when it's no longer there.

 

I've always thought that online communication is something in-between "pure" forms of written and oral speech of the pre-Internet/pre-digital era, because obviously forums topics are not entirely like mail correspondence, but have some features that make them closer to spoken language, which is highly situational. So, to draw the analogy, one can join a (real-life, offline) conversation between some other people only when they're talking, but not after they've stopped doing that. It seems that there are certain psychological and/or behavioural limitations on how long people can and will talk about a subject in informal communication, and when the conversation is over, trying to force it to continue (or simply to join the chat) may feel awkward and intrusive. The same logic seems to apply to at least some forms of digital communication in forums too.

[Dark Pulse]

Basically, don't bump the thread for really stupid reasons.

 

It's not a hard-and-fast rule per se, but as it indicates, some of these threads are very, very old. Doomworld's been around for well over 20 years, and indeed, for much older topics, many of those users aren't around anymore. (Some of them, sadly, permanently.)

 

It's one thing if it's so ultra-specific that it has to be bumped in that thread to make sense (i.e; a community project of some sort for example), but by and large, older threads get dusty, memories fade, people wander away from the community. And obviously if it's someone resurrecting a topic that they started or something, that's another thing entirely.

 

But by and large, what mattered 3, 6, 12+ months ago is probably not going to matter now, and I think that's essentially the gist of it.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Dark Pulse

[omx32x]

semi unrelated but it reminded me how some tech support forums delete new post that have an "problem already posted" issue but they also ban people for necro posting so if the old thread didnt fix your problem you are fucked

[esselfortium]

If you have something meaningful to add, it's usually okay to bump an old thread. The warning message is just there so that people realize they're about to reply "Wow, me too!" to a thread from 2002.