Does a thread stay dead if something is said?

[Snow_Cat]

Yeah;
I am of the philosphy that if you are continuing an idea (or discussion) you continue to post in the same thread until that thread is unmanageable. This keeps all of the content relating to the one idea in one place.
And if the conversation branches or ideas split you start a new thread to hold this new tangent.

There is also some disagreement as to whether or not invoking perils of tv-tropes.org:linking-back out weighs the benefits having a 'fresh' start.

[wallydawg]

The rules of bumping differ from forum to forum. For example, on Digital Press they would rather you bump an older thread than start a new one. The reasoning behind such is that being mainly a discussion forum about past and present gaming and gaming consoles, multiple threads have a higher occurrence of being repeated than they would here. They are many occasions that a "Top 10 list of your favorite game for X console" topic will surface, more so than buildlogs and things that we have here. This saves on clutter, having one long thread that started in 2003 or something than a handful (or more) of threads with people repeating their answers over and over.

However, on the opposite side of the argument, most people don't pay attention to the date of the original poster when they open up a thread that has been necrobumped. It's pretty unnerving to see what you think is a new thread where you have an opinion about something to post, only to realize that you had already posted in the thread (more often times about something you don't even remember saying), or that the OP doesn't even post here anymore.

That was the main problem of the "PSOne HDD" thread, which I'm sure that is what this thread is about. Clearly you can tell that the topic creator does not visit this site anymore, with 19 posts in 5+ years. Now, assuming Haunted360 information is all relevant, there wasn't all that much useful information in that thread anyway. It would have been more proper, in my opinion, for him to start a new thread about it and reference the old one via a link, as madhacker had suggested in that thread.

Personally, a one or two year bump isn't the end of the world, as long as new relevant information is added within reason. 5 years is too long for any topic, especially when the original poster does not frequent the boards anymore. I would say that appropriate bumping differs on the what the topic is about.

[Snow_Cat]

What if a previous participant in the thread returns to it?

I often between (work, thesis, unemployment, freelance, retrainign, hussling, thesis, work) disappear for years at a time from differnent forums; I like being able to see where the ideas I've left behind have gone (or died) with an ego-search. Since PHPBB does not feature local back-tracking this becomes a bit more difficult where new threads (I've not particapated in) have run an idea to its conclusion.

While nature of the projects on these other forums is collaborative-* projects here serve as inspiration for the next.

Would it be suggested that there then be a two year limitation for 'new' thread participants to revive a dead one?

*[when the penny dropps]

[e3c]

That's nothing on bungie.net forums in a day different people post the exact same threads 20-50 times literally in just one day. Bumps therr arent a problem seeing as a bump is considered just a few hours after a good 20 minutes a thread can be in the 2nd-4th page its crazy there

[tom61]

I often between (work, thesis, unemployment, freelance, retrainign, hussling, thesis, work) disappear for years at a time from differnent forums; I like being able to see where the ideas I've left behind have gone (or died) with an ego-search. Since PHPBB does not feature local back-tracking this becomes a bit more difficult where new threads (I've not particapated in) have run an idea to its conclusion.

What about all the topics started independently of yours covering the same topic? You'd be just as out of the loop on them, and are much more likely to occur. Searching for the concepts you were proposing would be much more efficient. A significant portion of all posts are dead if there hasn't been a reply in two weeks, but the same concept may come up many times. Also, a significant amount of necro-bumps have very little to offer. On these forums, probably 99% of the time it's some newbie vainly trying to be helpful, but failing miserably. A bunch of older members follow in the wake to help the original poster, only to find out that they can likely no longer help, as the OP is no longer around, or has gained significantly in skills and would no longer need the help.

[Snow_Cat]

So discussion (here) centeres around the actions of the OP and not exploring the concepts involved?

[tom61]

So discussion (here) centeres around the actions of the OP and not exploring the concepts involved?

My first thought on this post is that you missed the point entirely. I thought some more, but in some ways it does fit, but you need to include all posters in that thread as well (as a necro by the OP is sometimes unnerving as well).

After thinking about it more, I've come to the conclusion that necro/restart-ing post etiquette varies from forum to forum because it is a largely arbitrary and informal decision on the part of that specific forum. That's why, instead of the post being removed and locked by a mod (as it would for a formal rule violation), people resurrecting threads on here are typically mocked ("Holy Necro Batman!", "Good job on bumping a x year old post!", etc.) On forums where the opposite is true, you'll be mocked, told to search or yelled at for making a new post that covers old ground. It seems to have a correlation to post volume and the niceness of the people towards new users, but nothing hard and fast. I doubt you'll find a satisfactory answer as to why it is one way or another.

[Snow_Cat]

Clearly replying to Gannon's PPU chip question about an sourcing RGB PPU replacement with the code required to build one would be inappropriate since too much time has elapsed since the question was asked. And it would be more appropriate to start a new thread rather than post to the old one.

And (in this forum) would it be prefered that the old thread be quoted and linked back to if it has been idle for a period of time > 1 page?

Spoiler:

The code required to make a NES PPU! https://svn.pacedev.net/repos/pace/sw/s ... es_ppu.vhd Needs further development; could be retargeted for an LCD...

[tom61]

For a one post thread I wouldn't bother with a back track, but since you already have the info handy, it wouldn't hurt.

The length of time for one page of posts to occur varies by subforum and traffic. A year or more is straight out. 6 months is highly iffy, and should only be done if the OP is still active, and is likely to still want that information. Around the 1 month mark and less is typically OK.

Also, specifically dealing your intended post, not everyone works with CPLDs and FPGAs, so you should go into more detail as to what you mean by "The code required to make a NES PPU!" Also, there's no guarantee that he wanted to hook up a NES to a LCD 6 years ago, he could have wanted to hook up a CRT TV via SCART.

[Life of Brian]

Another thing to take into account is the difference between a discussion and a technical question. Many times a technical question may be answered by a single reply, whereas a discussion is open to far more input over a longer time. It doesn't matter if that discussion is about how to go about building something or if it is a more general discussion about opinions. Either way it can stick around longer.

[RockNRoll!]

I say there should be no rules for bumping/posting in a "dead" thread. Some old threads can be interesting and I don't care if they're old. Anarchy FTW

[TeamXlink]

RockNRoll, I also think that posting in an old thread should be alloqwd.

Posting in a 3 year old thread to say the words bump isn't that helpful, but I don't mind.

I would rather be able to view all of the information in one thread then to have to look at a bunch of different threads because they couldn't post in the old thread.