Brief question...

[mediaboy]

I'm sure that there is a thread somewhere on the forum about this, but I can't see it, and having just looked at the forum guidelines I see no mention of it.

Thread necromancy. Bringing a thread back to life after it has been abandoned. There seems to be the occasional person that does this, maybe once or twice a week. Is it against the rules or just bad practise?

Thread that I noticed a minute ago is this one: http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-gaming...w-problem.html


Thread died on 13th.. they just brought it back to life. Not the only one lying around, but the most recent one I can find.

Could a mod tell me please, or someone that knows for definite
I'm guessing that I'll get an awful lot of 'I think that it's...' posts. I normally do with this sort of question

Thanks
mediaboy

[Theo]

Forum etiquette dictates that people do not dredge up threads that have been dead for an extended period of time, unless something vastly important to the subject can be added by said dredger.

[TAKTAK]

It's not a rule at all, it's just that old threads tend to have old information (especially so on a tech site such as HEXUS) so by bumping an old thread trying to get an answer, or indeed answering a bygone thread it's likely to have passed it's best, and it would be better to create a new thread, there is nothing wrong with bumping an old thread, it just gets a bit dry if all the bumpee is adding is 'yeah thats it' or 'yeah try this' 5 years after the thread has died..

if it was against the rules then there wouldn't be any old threads.. they would just get deleted/locked after such and such a time. But sometimes it can be relevant years down the line, or maybe an idea has moved on..

It is just common practise to leave OLD threads be (by old being years) unless something is important that needs adding

[Salazaar]

I wouldn't call adding to a thread that's a couple of weeks old resurection anyway, a bit slow maybe but not a problem.

[kalniel]

Sometimes it can be appropriate to continue a thread on a topic that you want to post about, rather than start a new one. But it obviously depends on the topic as to whether the original contents were relevant to your post.

Example: Old thread saying there's a weekend discount on at McCowburger. Offer expires, thread lies dormant for a year. Next year same offer comes up; it'd be perfectly valid (IMHO) to ressurect the original thread saying 'offer back on'.

[MadduckUK]

99% of old thread revivals are by spammers or people looking to get to the 20 posts..

[Fraz]

99% of old thread revivals are by spammers or people looking to get to the 20 posts..

Just what I was gonna say... but in about 4 weeks.

[mediaboy]

Thanks everyone.

Fraz - very funny.....

[JK Ferret]

There are even a few threads thst have the honour of not having ANY 'best before' date.

I can think of 2...