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Ok so, Lego, do your stuff and shoot down another crazy idea

Here's my idea:
I know a lot of Forums have an "Autolock" feature, which autolocks after (for example) 90 days of inactivity. This is not what I am suggesting. I remember reading about it before and it was shot down because sometimes there is a legitimate reason to add to it (a long neglected Painting Log for Example).

What I am suggesting is this:
If a thread has been deemed "inactive", say 60 or 90 days perhaps, a new message added to it does NOT bump it up to the top until a Moderator Approves it. I doubt it will add much to the mod workload, but will prevent necromancers from bringing back foul beasts at all. Since people will report the post ANYWAY, the only difference is no Old 2 year old locked threads on page one

I don't see a problem with necromancy especially given how harsh people are about re-posts. Let them be raised rather than re-posted.

If it ain't broke...

Yeah it's not much of a problem anymore with the necro warning popups that occur on old threads.

legoburner wrote:Yeah it's not much of a problem anymore with the necro warning popups that occur on old threads.

The problem is, no-one reads them ;(

I personally don't see what the problem is with threadnomancy anyways.

Lordhat wrote:I personally don't see what the problem is with threadnomancy anyways.

Usually, the thread exists somewhere else, so it just takes up more virtual space. Throw in the posts about the necromancy, especially with all the pics that get tossed around for it, and it can eat up space for no real gain.

And it is annoying. Why are you reading 2 year old posts anyway?

It can be fun to look through old P&M and Painting threads, but it's a pain when newbish users add pointless 'woots' to ancient artistic institutions. We know they're there, and we can respect them quietly if we choose to. But let the dead lie in peace.

Mattlov wrote:Usually, the thread exists somewhere else, so it just takes up more virtual space.

I think that's re-posting, not necromancy.

Mattlov wrote:Throw in the posts about the necromancy, especially with all the pics that get tossed around for it, and it can eat up space for no real gain.

So the real problem is people who have a problem with necromancy.

Mattlov wrote:And it is annoying. Why are you reading 2 year old posts anyway?

Um . . . to avoid re-posting.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:It can be fun to look through old P&M and Painting threads, but it's a pain when newbish users add pointless 'woots' to ancient artistic institutions. We know they're there, and we can respect them quietly if we choose to. But let the dead lie in peace.

What's wrong with giving someone praise later rather than sooner? This is just 16yo-style eilitism.

Manchu wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:It can be fun to look through old P&M and Painting threads, but it's a pain when newbish users add pointless 'woots' to ancient artistic institutions. We know they're there, and we can respect them quietly if we choose to. But let the dead lie in peace.

What's wrong with giving someone praise later rather than sooner? This is just 16yo-style eilitism.

Publicly alluding to an elitist attitude on my part is pretty pathetic. I respond because I assume you're going to read this post - it's only been a day or so. If it had taken me over three months to notice you're a trolling git (I don't think you are, I think you just needed to round out your list of unimaginative replies with some unimaginative wit ), I wouldn't have bothered saying anything. I'm not going to drag out an argument, because repeatedly stating the same things keeps bumping the same old same to the head of the topic.

The gallery system incorporates every image uploaded to the forums or the gallery itself, and makes them accessible, searchable and easily linkable. In addition, you can leave comments and ratings. Nifty eh?

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Publicly alluding to an elitist attitude on my part is pretty pathetic. I respond because I assume you're going to read this post - it's only been a day or so. If it had taken me over three months to notice you're a trolling git (I don't think you are, I think you just needed to round out your list of unimaginative replies with some unimaginative wit ), I wouldn't have bothered saying anything. I'm not going to drag out an argument, because repeatedly stating the same things keeps bumping the same old same to the head of the topic.

As to elitism, res ipsa loquitor. Moreover, no need to drag out an argument when you obviously haven't got one.

The gallery system incorporates every image uploaded to the forums or the gallery itself, and makes them accessible, searchable and easily linkable. In addition, you can leave comments and ratings. Nifty eh?

Unless . . . this is it?

Searching the gallery and coming across a thread are very different. Leaving comments on a gallery picture is also different from participating in a discussion in a thread. But even if they were equivalent (and they are not) the galleries only cover P&M threads. What about everything else that is not included in the galleries?

New people join this board all the time. Some people leave it and come back much later. Is the problem with "newbish users," as you called them, or folks that have come back simply that they missed out on things? Necromancy may be mildly annoying to people who read and post everyday but if it does produce a substantial harm to the boards or comunity, it has yet to be alluded to in this thread.

Manchu wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Publicly alluding to an elitist attitude on my part is pretty pathetic. I respond because I assume you're going to read this post - it's only been a day or so. If it had taken me over three months to notice you're a trolling git (I don't think you are, I think you just needed to round out your list of unimaginative replies with some unimaginative wit ), I wouldn't have bothered saying anything. I'm not going to drag out an argument, because repeatedly stating the same things keeps bumping the same old same to the head of the topic.

As to elitism, res ipsa loquitor. Moreover, no need to drag out an argument when you obviously haven't got one.

The gallery system incorporates every image uploaded to the forums or the gallery itself, and makes them accessible, searchable and easily linkable. In addition, you can leave comments and ratings. Nifty eh?

Unless . . . this is it?

Searching the gallery and coming across a thread are very different. Leaving comments on a gallery picture is also different from participating in a discussion in a thread. But even if they were equivalent (and they are not) the galleries only cover P&M threads. What about everything else that is not included in the galleries?

New people join this board all the time. Some people leave it and come back much later. Is the problem with "newbish users," as you called them, or folks that have come back simply that they missed out on things? Necromancy may be mildly annoying to people who read and post everyday but if it does produce a substantial harm to the boards or comunity, it has yet to be alluded to in this thread.

My paragraph contained a point, not an argument. I see you're keen to practise your proven aptitude for doublespeak, so let's just disregard the idea of 'substantial harm' and talk about the actual point.

I am not a great user of the term 'noob' but I thought 'newbish user' might be a more delicate way to encompass the spectrum of new users and their differing experiences. Obviously it's fine to add relevant material to an old thread, especially if it's your thread, but often times people will be confused by this when a new thread could have been opened instead. A certain type of 'newbish user', to keep the term running, might scream necro at a thread bumped for a perfectly good reason. It's an accepted mandate of many forums that you don't bump old posts with pointless additions - some forget to adhere to one condition or the other.

Leaving comments on a gallery picture is also different from participating in a discussion in a thread

Yes, it's completely different. Participating in a discussion that happened >3 months ago? Whether the OP is a regular or not, he's more likely to see a comment on his Gallery page, assuming anyone other than me uses the damned thing. Anyone involved in the discussion will probably barely remember being in it.

Read the original post of mine you quoted. You obviously made that snark at me out of mindless bullishness, disregarding the specific kinds of annoying additions I was referring to. How can you be trusted to handle old threads if you won't even properly read individual posts?

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Read the original post of mine you quoted. You obviously made that snark at me out of mindless bullishness, disregarding the specific kinds of annoying additions I was referring to. How can you be trusted to handle old threads if you won't even properly read individual posts?

Take your own advice and read my posts:

Manchu wrote:Searching the gallery and coming across a thread are very different. Leaving comments on a gallery picture is also different from participating in a discussion in a thread. But even if they were equivalent (and they are not) the galleries only cover P&M threads. What about everything else that is not included in the galleries?

Mindless bullishness indeed.
You can dismiss what I've said as double speak if you like but that doesn't change the fact that no one has yet said why necromancy (assuming that at least some of the additions are not just "w00t") is anything more than simply annoying/a chance to act like a wise old internet tough guy. Nor has anyone addressed whether it's more annoying than reposting.

But if you used "newbish" to avoid an elitist tone, then I apologize for reading arrogance into it. That, I will certainly concede, is entirely my fault.

Guys please. There is absolutely no reason for you two to be insinuating the other is doing something horrible. Just let it go and discuss the topic if you still care to. Seriously, I'm often amazed at how easy it is for two people to go at each other, especially when all it takes is for one person to diffuse the situation.

Anyway, Manchu, let me answer your question:

Thread Necromancy is an issue, but you are correct that it isn't as serious a matter as many forum posters want to make it out to be. In fact, many of the moderators have a much more severe dislike of thread necromancy than I do and as such they 'lock down' these cases when I would most certainly allow them to continue. Obviously tastes on the matter differ.

But as for the reason for 'why' it is bad, it is pretty simple:

When it comes to topical threads, thread necromancy is annoying to regular posters (as you point out) but can be downright confusing to occasional visitors/posters.

It really all depends on how topical something is. If it isn't topical at all (discussing 40K fluff or updating an army blog), then there is absolutely no problem with thread Necromancy.

So with P&M Blogs, P&M Tutorials, some standard Painting and Modeling threads, Fiction threads, fluff threads, even with some tactics and rules debates it can be okay to drag a thread back up, but only if a user has something worthwhile to add. If they don't (say they just want to post "hey that's cool") then the annoyance to the regular users of seeing a long-dead post taking up space on the front page isn't worth the trade-off.

However, when you're dealing with topical information, when a user performs thread Necromancy you now have a serious disconnect, in that you have a thread which is dealing with old, often now incorrect info which will appear to the casual visitor to be a new thread (if they don't check the dates on the posts, which many don't).

Then you get people making comments to months old conversations which are no longer relevant. Not only is this an annoyance to the regular user, but now this mish-mash thread is confusing to new users who can have hard time figuring out the flow of the conversation in the thread (and may think we've all gone mad).

So, for example, dragging up Eldar codex rumors that are years old to comment on the Eldar Codex is not only annoying, but can be confusing because new users may think this giant 20+ page thread is actually rumors for a NEW codex. The same is true for rules debates or tactics threads, where people sometimes drag up rules or tactics discussions about rules which have SINCE BEEN CHANGED.


So really it all comes down to whether or not the thread is topical and whether or not the person doing the thread necromancy is actually contributing something actually worthwhile to the thread in order to make up for the minor annoyance to regular users.

I'm cool, I was just reacting to a derisive expression. I don't feel I should have to 'avoid' an elitist tone in any case. There's a fundamental self-importance that shapes the ego of anyone who can confidently play serious toy soldiers in a public place, it just doesn't have to be dragged up.

Basically I disagree with autolocking; I don't think that threads should be auto-locked under any circumstances, but on the other hand I have no fondness for necro-thread shenanigans. My strongest argument for the former remains the fact that useful material can be added later, on-topic as is appropriate in general. I'm also of the opinion that simple compliments can be left easily on the Gallery (click the user's name, go to their gallery, and find the picture).

I'd quote the Dreadnote, but you can scroll up and read it yourself.

I can understand that many months later you might actually want to add some new found information to a long dead thread that "IS" relevant. But considering that most old threads are basically only fit for reference an autolock would be a good feature, no one can add pointless stuff to bump it up and annoy users or as Yakface said, to confuse newer and older players alike.

And if you did wish to add some useful information then a quick PM to a Moderator can see it unlocked.
I agree with Gwar, especially if I get in his Sig