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Why are forums so anal about old topics and posts?


Dark Ariel7

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I thought I'd start a discussion about why most forums freak out when one performs necromancy on an old thread or starts a new thread for something that was already there. Which when you think about it is contradictory. How can you ask your question without about a topic similarly discussed if forums don't want you to start new topics or revive old topics?!?

I mean, ignoring the  laziness involved with not looking for old threads before posting, Who does a repeat thread or old thread hurt? I have had plenty of times when I go to forums looking for anime to watch and the thread is a few years old. Then one guy will post about new anime that answers the Op's question and everyone will give him crap about reviving threads. Sure the OP might not care anymore but it's not like the OP is the only one interested in the topic or like anyone lost anything just because the guy posted there.

I have yet to see reactions here on this phenomena but this seems true for most if not all forums I have visited.

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My guess would be that it's because older members, who perhaps had already posted in the topic all those months(years?) ago might post again on it after it gets necro'd and that'd look weird, or the topic might have died simply because there was nothing left to discuss, and then someone who only read the first and last pages makes a point that was made a million times in the middle pages. Plus even if that doesn't happen, knowledge and opinions can change drastically over time, so it might be better to just start fresh.

That said, any forum that forbids necros and forbids repeat threads is just stupid - it's either one or the other, or neither, like it is here. 

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It's not that repeat threads are strictly banned so much as it is that you get a ton of hate from all of the member of the forum about looking through the threads first or whatever. I get the train of thought on dried up threads but threads about recommendation and things like that never really loose value over time. Also the whole first last page thing makes sense but it is also lame to start a new thread about the same topic on that thread since every forum member and their mother is just going to bash you for it. Even if the point was made before it's not like you are going to read 15 pages of forum posts just because you want people to hear your opinion.

I personally am a huge fan of repeat threads. It gets a chance for more opinions to be heard and the flavor of the thread is always different depending on the OP.

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Because I just necroed a thread by being an idiot.

 

Lol. To be honest, I think some people just like having stuff to bash. Me and my room mate just watched the last epic of Railgun S2 together (he had already watched it before actually) and we were more or less bashing the entire thing, but in actuality we both liked the episode. We concluded that it's just fun to bash stuff ( we pointed out stuff they did right as well of course, it's fun watching with another person).

 

A new topic doesn't really matter at all, as long as two topics about the same thing aren't going on at the same time, in my opinion. You can always merge topics if necessary. (most people just link to the other topic they posted in if there are two at once, rather than retype everything too)

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We do encourage to revive old threads (I was told).

 

Making a new thread about something that has already been discussed is a little bit pointless and most of the time we tag along.

 

I don't think there is any problem, I replied to threads who died 1 year ago and still got awnsers.

It allows a forgotten topic to be seen by others again.

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We do encourage to revive old threads (I was told).

 

Making a new thread about something that has already been discussed is a little bit pointless and most of the time we tag along.

 

I don't think there is any problem, I replied to threads who died 1 year ago and still got awnsers.

It allows a forgotten topic to be seen by others again.

It's a hit or miss thing.

 

If you're lucky, you'll get legitimate replies

If not, you'll get shit on. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

From my experience of running forums, I've personally never been too concerned with people bringing back old threads if they have something useful and new to contribute.

One exception that left me a little peeved was when somebody I was doing an exchange with resurrected a debate thread from 2007 (this being in 2013) that had been long resolved and the original member who raised it being long gone (which I could guarantee because I knew her IRL). It would have been okay if it was just that one stupid bump and everybody left it alone, but then suddenly all the people I was exchanging with proceeded to reply to it with useless contributions. It was the first and only thread I've had to lock for necrobumping, but the fact that I had to waste my time locking it instead of the people just leaving it to die was what really bugged me (that and getting jibbed out of some exchange posts).

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Sometimes, you would prefer for a thread to stay dead due to its less-than-pleasant/intelligent/useful/something nature. The necro'd thread was one of those, I'd say. Well, it got derailed into a lock after the necro, which I suppose might be a (subconscious? inb4 kaguya group conspiracy) way of reaching the same result...

 

If you bring back a decent thread people probably won't whine~

 

I also find it amusing that this thread was semi-necro'd just now

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I mean even if the posts are stupid as a moderator so long as they remain somewhat within the confines of what is socially acceptable I don't see why you have to even lock a thread. Why does the thread need to die out even if it was a stupid discussion? The people doing it don't seem to think so or else they would not post there.

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  • 4 months later...

Well most of the time, new thread are just redundant copies of aready existing threads because people are too lazy to use the almighty search button.

 

They just repeat what has been said with possibly slighty of very little new information.

 

That's why necroing is good in my opinion.

 

I've been here for only 6 months and i've seen some things being re-discussed too many times ...

And then some new users complain that we want to cut their fun, when really, they could have searched for 1 minute.

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I've been here for only 6 months and i've seen some things being re-discussed too many times ...

And then some new users complain that we want to cut their fun, when really, they could have searched for 1 minute.

 

New users also enjoy sharing their opinions. Creating new threads help that. 

There have been times before in which I wanted to post, but I was unable to contribute anything new to the thread in question. Most things had already been said or discussed. New members might feel the same way about old threads, so they make new ones. Of course, this doesn't negate the fact that it's mostly laziness.

By redoing the discussion, new members get a clean slate, while old members can either ignore it, copy&paste or revise their opinions.

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New users also enjoy sharing their opinions. Creating new threads help that. 

There have been times before in which I wanted to post, but I was unable to contribute anything new to the thread in question. Most things had already been said or discussed. New members might feel the same way about old threads, so they make new ones. Of course, this doesn't negate the fact that it's mostly laziness.

By redoing the discussion, new members get a clean slate, while old members can either ignore it, copy&paste or revise their opinions.

 

Maybe it's a personnal thing then.

 

I don't mind people saying the same thing or supporting an opinion that already has been formulated by telling it in their own words. That's even good.

 

But making a second thread is just killing the previous one and adding an unnecassary topic to the pile of unnecessary topics already existing in the forums.

It's just adding to the mess.

 

And I don't think this is a brake to newcomers.

I remember when I joined, I searched for topics up to page 10 and necro'd countless threads. And sometimes it relaunched the discussion, sometimes not. Remember that responding to something makes it pop-up in the "new-content" and on the forum's index.

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I don't mind people saying the same thing or supporting an opinion that already has been formulated by telling it in their own words. That's even good.

I don't mind it either, really... I personally can't do this, though, I'm terrible at making opinions.

 

But making a second thread is just killing the previous one and adding an unnecassary topic to the pile of unnecessary topics already existing in the forums.

It's just adding to the mess.

There might have been a misunderstanding here. I'm talking about making a new thread when the old one is already dead. Two threads about the same thing just get merged anyways, unless one of them is already dead.

 

And I don't think this is a brake to newcomers.

I remember when I joined, I searched for topics up to page 10 and necro'd countless threads. And sometimes it relaunched the discussion, sometimes not. Remember that responding to something makes it pop-up in the "new-content" and on the forum's index.

Again, although that works, people won't read 10 pages of posts and it could just become a repeat and a cycle:

Person A: *Creates the topic*

Person B: *Starts discussion*

Person C: *Feeds discussion*

Person D: *Argues with person C*

Person C: *Argues back*

Person D: *Argues*

Persons Z,X,Y,V,U,T: *Posts get lost amid the discussion*

--Thread Dies--

Person E: *Revives discussion*

Person F: *Says the same things person C said pages back*

Person G: *Says the same things person D said pages back*

--More 2 pages and thread dies again--

*Repeat*

*???*

*Profit*

 

Then again, it's not like that's a bad thing. I just think that making a new thread allows people's opinions to get read. Look at this example of how I do it:

 

10 page thread: I read the first and the second page, get bored and jump to the last one.

4 page thread: I read 1,2,4.

3 page thread: Read everything.

 

Of course, that's me, but I'd wager that not everyone feels like reading through tens of pages on a particular thread, especially when most of the opinions are the same.

Therefore, 3 threads with 2 pages a month, are more likely to get read than 1 thread with 6 pages every three months. By my logic, that is.

Er... Clearly that's not the most practical example, but I'm trying to make a point here.

 

If nothing else, new members get a clean playground to have fun on.

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Unless this is only intended to be a bitch thread, I would like to see this in Improvements or at least the Feedback subforum.

 

It's just a problem with the matter of the forums: VNs are niche, anime is, and both are super stagnant mediums.

 

We're not talking about ever-evolving online games that change after each and every patch, and I would argue that the matter itself is too shallow to discuss after a certain point - VNs are no masterpieces in writing, and therefore people don't constantly find new ways to interpret certain things about them. We're left with threads that die off after a few pages because we're still a super small community and because there's only so much to talk about.

As with many other things, the growth the site is experiencing calls for a clarification of policies: Is it encouraged to necro or just create a new thread about a topic that died off months/years ago? Everyone has their own opinion, and oftentimes people just don't care to argue anymore as soon as something turned to a policy. You'll have people bitching no matter what you decide upon, just as you would have if you didn't put any policy down. Just get it out of the way so we can avoid these problems in the future.

 

These forums are being regarded as generally friendly, so I'm sure if someone were to necro a thread with his only points having already been mentioned I'm sure someone would take the few minutes to point out certain parts of the discussion - and we're free to let it die again or pick up from there.

 

Final verdict: We need just a tad more policies in place for things like this.

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I don't mind it either, really... I personally can't do this, though, I'm terrible at making opinions.

 

There might have been a misunderstanding here. I'm talking about making a new thread when the old one is already dead. Two threads about the same thing just get merged anyways, unless one of them is already dead.

 

Again, although that works, people won't read 10 pages of posts and it could just become a repeat and a cycle:

Person A: *Creates the topic*

Person B: *Starts discussion*

Person C: *Feeds discussion*

Person D: *Argues with person C*

Person C: *Argues back*

Person D: *Argues*

Persons Z,X,Y,V,U,T: *Posts get lost amid the discussion*

--Thread Dies--

Person E: *Revives discussion*

Person F: *Says the same things person C said pages back*

Person G: *Says the same things person D said pages back*

--More 2 pages and thread dies again--

*Repeat*

*???*

*Profit*

 

Then again, it's not like that's a bad thing. I just think that making a new thread allows people's opinions to get read. Look at this example of how I do it:

 

10 page thread: I read the first and the second page, get bored and jump to the last one.

4 page thread: I read 1,2,4.

3 page thread: Read everything.

 

Of course, that's me, but I'd wager that not everyone feels like reading through tens of pages on a particular thread, especially when most of the opinions are the same.

Therefore, 3 threads with 2 pages a month, are more likely to get read than 1 thread with 6 pages every three months. By my logic, that is.

Er... Clearly that's not the most practical example, but I'm trying to make a point here.

 

If nothing else, new members get a clean playground to have fun on.

 

I do agree, but what if we keep it clean to begin with ?

 

Threads tend to derail too easily - <.<. And that's where you are right, restarting a dead discussion because it has been completely driven off-topic is difficult. 

But if we work to keep the forums clean, make the threads easier to find (with relevant tags for example), and tell the members to make a minimum use of the search function, this should solve the issue of excessive reposting and necro-threads.

 

And if I recall correctly Nay, re-using old threads is encouraged.

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I think necromancing old threads is fine. One time, on a forum that I once frequent, I started a new thread and within seconds an admin came by and said "There's already a thread similar to this. God, why won't people just use the search button before starting a new thread.". He then proceeded to delete the thread. I was like "Oh well, guess I'll go post in that thread." And guess what? The same admin replied to my post and told me not to necro old threads. *facepalm*

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