Implies operator

Mike Parker aldacron at gmail.com
Fri Sep 17 01:46:18 UTC 2021


On Friday, 17 September 2021 at 00:12:32 UTC, Elmar wrote:

>
> Thanks Steve. Sorry for bothering you.
> Is there a specific advantage in starting a new thread for an 
> old thread, for a topic which might be relevant for different 
> people from time to time?

It's Forum Etiquette 101. Many forums forbid it completely, 
others allow it under specific circumstances. Some even go so far 
as to automatically lock threads after a certain amount of time 
has passed.

The term "necroposting" refers to bumping old threads just to get 
them to the top again. That's probably the original motivation 
for such forum rules, but over time it has come to be viewed as a 
common courtesy not to resurrect old threads. Here's how I view 
it.

Generally, when people reply to a post they expect that they are 
replying to a current conversation and often don't pay attention 
to the date of the thread. Most of the time they are, because 
forum etiquette across the internet generally guarantees it. So 
it's extremely annoying to subsequently realize that a new post 
you just replied to is in a thread that is 15 years old. Were 
there other threads in the intervening years that made this one 
irrelevant? Was replying to the post that resurrected the thread 
a waste of time?

It's especially annoying when the old thread has several pages of 
posts. I can follow a current as it develops since I usually 
check the forums several times a day. For a resurrected thread, I 
have to go back through the whole thread for context. Even if 
it's a thread I participated in or read in the past, the 
discussion is long gone from my memory. If the thread is old 
enough, the web interface/newsreader/email client may show me 
several unread posts, clueing me in to check the dates. But if 
I've already marked the old posts as read at some point in the 
past, I can easily overlook it and not realize it until I've 
already invested time I wouldn't otherwise have invested.

By creating a new thread and linking to the original, it's clear 
from the beginning that you are continuing an old (in this case, 
very old) conversation, and readers can then make a conscious 
decision to view the older thread.

I think it's justifiable to resurrect an old thread if: the 
thread is no more than two or three years old; you are *certain* 
the topic is still relevant; the thread is not more than a couple 
of pages on the web interface. I mean, it's a fuzzy boundary and 
people will disagree on where it lies, and this is just where I 
think it lies. Some people will argue that it's a stupid bit of 
etiquette anyway. But I'm pretty sure many will agree that 15 
years is much too old.


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