Thread Necromancy Questions

[Bear Ribs]

I notice that with the last update, we now have a warning box appearing on replies if the thread is a few weeks old. Previously we haven't had any bans on thread necromancy and it's not in the current rules. Is this just an artifact of the update or is thread necromancy now banned on The Sietch?

 

[LordSunhawk]

It's an artifact of the update, any rule changes would be announced and allowed a discussion period if they aren't of an emergency nature.

 

[Captain X]

Good. I was kind of hoping that was the case, as I've never understood why some forums had bans on reviving an old thread. Especially since a lot of them also would complain if you didn't use the search function to see if there were existing threads on the topic before posting new ones. It happened more than once where I'd find an interesting thread and would go to respond to it only to find the thread was apparently "too old" for other members on the forum.

 

[Agent23]

Considering how little we do in the VS forum and ASB subforums I don't see much of a point in banning necros.

Then again, I have noticed a pronounced trend of merging threads, which IMHO might be cutting down on activity.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Yeah I don't see the logic in a Necromancy ban at all, sometimes new information can come up or general consensus can change.

I'm glad sietch doesn't have one and I hope it never does.

 

[PsihoKekec]

This is kind of high trust vs low trust society issue, smaller more homogeneous forums can do with fewer rules and less mod involvement, while larger less homogeneous boards need rules for every little thing and lot of mod involvement, which can quickly spiral into purity mode.

The necro rule is due to griefer tactic which I saw several times on different forums, basically spamming the first page with long dead threads, usually the new post was as little as a single dot, but later when minimum message length was enacted, they turned to copy-paste a line or two of text. It looks like shit like this was common enough for these measures to be made a default part of forum software. I have no problem with mods granting these members their suicide by banhammer wish.

And don't get me started when seeing a new reply on a story that has been on hiatus for months, hoping things are moving again only to find some moron asking why there are no updates. Pile up of pissed off members telling the moron where he can stick his query is fine, no need for mod intervention.

 

[Agent23]

This is kind of high trust vs low trust society issue, smaller more homogeneous forums can do with fewer rules and less mod involvement, while larger less homogeneous boards need rules for every little thing and lot of mod involvement, which can quickly spiral into purity mode.

The necro rule is due to griefer tactic which I saw several times on different forums, basically spamming the first page with long dead threads, usually the new post was as little as a single dot, but later when minimum message length was enacted, they turned to copy-paste a line or two of text. It looks like shit like this was common enough for these measures to be made a default part of forum software. I have no problem with mods granting these members their suicide by banhammer wish.

And don't get me started when seeing a new reply on a story that has been on hiatus for months, hoping things are moving again only to find some moron asking why there are no updates. Pile up of pissed off members telling the moron where he can stick his query is fine, no need for mod intervention.

I think that back in the day the problem might have been technical.
I always assumed that at some point a thread in these forums becomes "archived" by the forum software, as in the posts get moved to another table in a way where you can access them linearly since the rows would be sequential or something.

And even if such an optimization does not exist reading a huge number of non-sequential records would be expensive in time due to lots of random disk seeks.

At least I think that is why the no Necro policy was implemented when SB was going in the crapper technically around the time of the Athena debackle back when Mr. Burns was trying to move the forum out of Kier's company's basement.

Nowadays, we have SSD.

 

[Buba]

Good. I was kind of hoping that was the case, as I've never understood why some forums had bans on reviving an old thread. Especially since a lot of them also would complain if you didn't use the search function to see if there were existing threads on the topic before posting new ones.

I'm on an old forum with a very old engine (predating invention of concept of "thread necromancy" ) where it is absolutely kosher to post in threads from e.g. 2005
And the mods are livid and go medieval on you if you post a new thread on a subject if there is a thread about it - even if that last post is from said 2005 ...

As said above - I agree that a small forum definitely does not need a thread necromancy hammer. Larger ones - I'm of two minds ...

 

[Skallagrim]

mods are livid and go medieval on you

The biggest problem with forums is mods like that. No, it's not retarded users. Those are ubiquitous, because retarded people are ubiquitous. But mods who have let their "power" go to their heads and behave like dicks are the sure sign that an online community is utterly fucked.

Mind you, I'm not talking about mods who give as good as they get in a personal capacity. That's fine; even healthy. But if they use their position to act like dicks, you might as well board up the whole place. No use hanging around when it's like that...

 

[Buba]

I exagerrated somewhat - not medieval level of bad. You get a scolding, finger waving and - if you are a repeat offender - maybe 2-3 days "vacation".