thread resurrections

I appreciate Hexus doesn't automatically close old threads. Sometimes it's useful to follow up a while after something to feedback/update etc. BUT is there a way that people with fewer than 20 posts can be prevented from resurrecting old threads say more than 6 months old? It's really annoying to have them pop back up in your subscribed lists, and quite often they don't add much to the thread. The good old-rehash of someone else's post presumably as they scrabble to get to 20 posts seems a particular favourite of new posters.

i think it is as you say a case of Thread Spamming to get the 20 posts, if it cant be blocked could the 20 post rule be edited so not only do you have to have so many posts but you also need to be a member for a certain length of time , i know the mods do try to get as many cases as possible banned when they are just spamming but this could add another deterrent

We will delete posts that we consider to be post count pimping (PCP) or just reduce the post count, or in extreme cases suspend an account for a period of time.

So if you see any PCPs please report the post. The mod team will act when we see them, but with the best will in the world, we cannot cover the board 24x7, so your help is invaluable!

Posts in some forums don't contribute to post counts, but some threads lend themselves to PCPs, and in those cases, it is very much a judgement call.

I think part of the problem is search engines.

People search for a problem, a forum post is thrown up, they dont read the date or understand etiquette, and post anyway.

I'd suppose the "best" solution would involve the thread being closed after a time, but the creator being able to reopen it if they have an update or something.

I'm sure there's a way ik9000's proposal could be done, but not, as far as I'm aware, without custom programming. That then opens up issues with the cost, with adding complexity to the system we already have which has a fair bit of customisation, with complicating upgrades, and so on. All told, it's a balance and I'm not convinced that the benefits win the balance. Not that it's my decision, but I'd struggle to argue for it to be a priority.

Good points about complexity/cost to implement. It certainly is a bit annoying, but the issue for me is really whether any new post is actually posting for a genuine reason or just to boost post count (for whatever reasons) - date alone isn't the only indicator that someone is doing that - it could be that an original question was asked a few years ago and it was subsequently bumped.. all of a sudden you might get 10 or so new posters answering the OP's question with repeat information yet they're each making the post within a few days or weeks of the previous, but clearly none are taking the time to take much of a look at the thread they're replying to. On the other hand, a post about obscure cars in the 70s might validly be bumped by a completely new poster with some great content.

In such cases, our cheap labour mods are the best way of dealing with it ;) They can assess many factors like the original date, the contents of the rest of the thread, the value of the information the new person is posting, and take into account the other types of post that the person is making. It's really simple for a human brain to aggregate such factors and come to an accurate conclusion, but surprisingly hard for an algorithm.

I only feel sorry for them because I'm not sure the reporting tools are the most time efficient for them - but that's their problem, I'm happy to just fire off a concern about any and all posts I don't think are for genuine reasons. The mod team are also great at communicating back if they want a change in reporting behaviour so don't worry about reporting if in doubt!

I've just fallen for a couple of resurrected threads this morning, so this thread is most apt... aw, wait... **checks date** phew.

Hehe I noticed :p

Mods, are users sent a message when they are spotted doing this? It sometimes seems like they have posts deleted but the next day they are back doing the same thing - are they even aware they're doing something undesirable?

Most of the time we will send a user a friendly message ;) Then we might kick some bottom.

I was going to leave it about 8 or 9 years before posting in this thread, but I know I'd probably forget by then so here's my thoughts on this.

When I first joined this forum it was after having 'discovered' it through chance, as with many people new to this forum I was trying to find an answer to a question, I forget both what the question and answer ended up being but that's not the point, what I found was a forum that was interesting enough for me to poke around and I found more than just the answer to my question.

Most forums that I find in this way will be forgotten once I have what I came for, but this one caught my eye, enough for me to register. I am fairly certain that once I registered or possibly even before registering I had found some discussion topics that I felt I wanted to comment on, they may have no longer been hot topics but most likely interesting enough to strike a chord with me. Did I check how current they are/were, not really, I was new so all of the topics would have been new to me and I had a burning desire to participate, a desire so strong that checking for best before dates was not amongst my highest priority. I think it was a number of months before I started looking at original post dates and this is still something I don't always do when the urge to get stuck in is stronger than my ability to rely on common sense.

It's strange how I get frustrated when others act the way I did when I was new, but hopefully that explains how some people fall foul of this, though it might not explain it in every case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KeyboardDemon

It's strange how I get frustrated when others act the way I did when I was new, but hopefully that explains how some people fall foul of this, though it might not explain it in every case.

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Oh certainly, but would you carry on doing it after it'd been pointed out to you by a mod not to?