Dead threads coming alive

Is it just my imagination/perception, or have there been a lot more dead threads revived lately?  Especially with people taking a thread that's been dead for a year, and giving advice to the OP, who most likely hasn't been on the site in months.

Is it just the pre-holiday newbies? I don't remember it happening last year, but there is a lot I don't remember about last year...

I'm glad that people are using the search function, but some of these threads really don't need a new response.

No, it isn't your imagination. People are searching for interesting threads and responding, no matter how old the thread might be.

it is happening

<.<    >.>

o.O

They are the undead threads.  Zombie threads.

Hm.  I wonder how long before 28 Days Later conditions set in.

It's all good, as long as you have the right reference material.

Some golden oldies are popping up and reminding me of some good exchanges, but I am wondering why some feel the need to respond to something that hasn't been active for over 4 months - I mean, there's a reason why the thread died, people.

I ressurect my Gator thread every season for luck.

So far it's working *knocks wood*

Go Gators!

frankenthreads need their castles razed to ash.

Yes, and then some of us see it as a recent thread, only looking at the date of the post before ours, and reply.  Then, we later realize that we just foolishly replied to a 1 year old thread : (

Original Post by santonacci:

It's all good, as long as you have the right reference material.

Some golden oldies are popping up and reminding me of some good exchanges, but I am wondering why some feel the need to respond to something that hasn't been active for over 4 months - I mean, there's a reason why the thread died, people.

I also think people are bored with the active threads and want to shake things up a bit by resurrecting a thread that is of interest. 

^ That or practice their Threadcromancy skills.  Nothing like the dark forum arts to liven up your work day. 

Why don't they (CC mods) kill the threads after a certain number of days??? They are just taking up space on some server somewhere.

Well, the hope is that people will search for answers to their questions (even if the thread is old), so that we don't get the same questions all the time. But if the searcher then posts to that thread, it bounces it to the top of the board, and people start addressing it as if it's new.

I want people to be able to search for "thighs" to find one of a million threads that say that there is no such thing as spot burning. It's the people that then post to that thread to say "yeah, I have this problem too - if anyone knows any good exercises to reduce the size of my thighs, let me know." that annoy me. They didn't bother reading the responses, or if they did, they didn't like the answer or think it'll be different for them.

Or maybe I need to take a breath, and stop letting my coworkers' bad moods affect mine...

Original Post by amayou82:

Why don't they (CC mods) kill the threads after a certain number of days??? They are just taking up space on some server somewhere.

Um.. because most of them are harmless and there really isn't an issue, in our minds, if someone wants to revive a post from last year about The Biggest Loser or the Florida Gators or Harry Potter.

well one option would be for a thread to automatically lock a certain number of days after the last post (there are too many threads for us to go checking on the dates of the last activity and manually locking)

however, some threads can be revived and still be a relevant discussion

for example, a person who reaches his weight goal might want to post to the thread in which he posted his weight loss strategy

old threads -- post to them, don't post to them -- it's your call

(but generally it is considered bad form in netiquette unless there is a compelling reason to resurrect an old thread)

Original Post by nomoreexcuses:

(but generally it is considered bad form in netiquette unless there is a compelling reason to resurrect an old thread)

End Result - It's just alot easier (and better form) to read the thread before responding to it. And make sure to check out the date it was posted and last responded to.

I think part of the problem is that when you search the forums, the default sort is by "popularity", so a 2 year old thread is often at the top of the results. 

I always go and resort by date, but apparently not everyone does.

It would likely solve this problem if the site managers could fix it where the default result are already sorted by date instead of popularity.

Yes, that is annoying for me too. First I search and then I almost always have to sort by date to find what I'm looking for.

I had something I was going to say but I think I'll wait and post it to this thread next year.

Tom, this thread started way back at 9am - just let it die! ;)

Screw netiquette, if there are 100 threads on thighs delete all the irrelevant ones :-) that should leave a much smaller number.

There are some threads that require - nay demand - to be reanimated from time to time.