Necro posting

[centaurianmudpig]

I've never ever understood why anyone has an issue with posting to an old thread. If they're going on a tangent, then start a new thread. But if all they'd be doing is repeating what the original thread was about, then creating a new thread is much worse than tacking on to the existing one. I'd much rather they demonstrate that they've done enough research to find the old relevant thread, but it didn't solve their issue.

Some board owners don't like necro posts, even if they are the same. Perhaps they are more interested in their topics count. Personally, if it's relevant then necro posting is the way to go. Best to keep your eggs in one basket rather than strewn across the ether. Especially when its in a support forum, it allows seekers of help to find information more easily, when the number of pages hasn't bloated of course. I'm looking at you "Run All Old WC Games in DOSBox Walkthrough"

 

[Worf]

The only concern with necro posting is that a lot of readers may not realize it's an old thread so readers may get through and not realize the topic was from 5+ years ago. before replying to a really old post.

It's a bigger problem on forums where the post date isn't as obvious as it could be.

 

[AD]

If a person is actually contributing something new to the thread, then necro usually isn't an issue. Bumping a dead thread just to bump it is pretty un-cool. It's also entirely possible for a thread to be so woefully out of date that it would be preferable to start a new thread anyway. For example, anyone wanting to run Privateer probably shouldn't be looking at thread on how to use 'myjemm'. Overall, necro posts are more of a problem on forums that are busy in the extreme.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I suspect it is an impulse bred into us. Early man in his caves, the Usenet, saw threads not as a helpful source of information and camaraderie, but a as terrifying challenge to be stamped out. Lacking modern brains, moderation tools, bandwidth and general accountability, our newsgroup ancestors were instead forced to decry anyone bringing up an old argument or making them download a few more bits of the same question again as ruining the experience for the group.