What is the etiquette when it comes to thread resurrection?

by Joseph Robinson Banned
10 replies
It's been happening all afternoon. Old threads with dead conversations are being brought back to the front page for reasons unknown. At first, they were month old conversations. Not completely irrelevant, more of a "really, you brought that back" kind of thing.

It's getting worse this evening though. In the past hour, I've watched threads from July 2011 and one from 2008 brought back to life. We are not talking about reopening an old discussion either, just a nonsense comment to boost post count.

On to my question, what is the correct way to handle these instances when they start to get out of control? The rules didn't really give me a clear indication when I just reread them. Should it be a simple infraction, or are we expected to go all the way and report it?

Anyone who has seen/handled this happening before care to pipe up? I've either ignored these things happening in the past or completely missed the fact that it was an old post...
#etiquette #resurrection #thread
  • Profile picture of the author fin
    You're either:

    A - An idiot for resurrecting an old thread, or,

    B - An idiot for not using the search function.

    You can't win; don't try.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
      Banned
      Originally Posted by fin View Post

      You're either:

      A - An idiot for resurrecting an old thread, or,

      B - An idiot for not using the search function.

      You can't win; don't try.
      Not the point of this at all. Take a look at some of them, the comments that bring the posts back up add nothing to the conversation. They are all literally one liner comments. If there is a logic behind it, I can't see it.

      If you can bring up an old conversation and add to it, I implore you to do so. Going to an old thread to say "I agree" or to restate what has already been mentioned multiple times? I don't see how that adds value to the forum at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bill Farnham
    Joe,

    It's a bit of a grey area, but if you as a member moderator feel the digging up of an old thread adds nothing to the discussion, or is obviously spam, simply hit the report post triangle.

    If others feel the same way you do and report the post the big gun moderators will handle it.

    Just use good discretion and common sense.

    ~Bill
    Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author JOSourcing
    Banned
    How about resurrecting old topics that have been discussed to death!?
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  • Profile picture of the author EdBryant
    I know sometimes if you are searching google for some kind of IM topic, old forum posts will come up in the results.

    Maybe that's what is happening here.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Often a spammer will search for topics related to his spam and post in the old threads. Pretty easy to spot when you see the same poster resurrecting old threads all related to a certain topic. Report those.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Often a spammer will search for topics related to his spam and post in the old threads. Pretty easy to spot when you see the same poster resurrecting old threads all related to a certain topic. Report those.
      Adding to this, you sometimes see the old thread after the mods have nuked the offending post and/or poster. Since the offending thread will soon either gain new life on its own or sink back into obscurity, they don't mess with trying to re-age the thread. And all you see is the residue...
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  • Profile picture of the author rooze
    Maybe some people don't see the dates....they search, find the thread, then just assume because there are posts in it it's still alive. Could be innocent enough.

    I'd sooner see an old thread resurrected rather than 5 new ones all with the same title as the old thread.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
      Banned
      Originally Posted by rooze View Post

      Maybe some people don't see the dates....they search, find the thread, then just assume because there are posts in it it's still alive. Could be innocent enough.

      I'd sooner see an old thread resurrected rather than 5 new ones all with the same title as the old thread.
      A point I had definitely overlooked...
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