Never heard of this before

[Mike Brady]

"Digging up old topics is necroposting and not considered appropriate on the Internet":  per an admin on another forum (not woodworking related, but got my attention anyway).  Have any of you encountered this?  We would be up a creek if this was applied here!

[Carl Grover]

I belong to several forums. Never heard of that before. I think in our case, instead of bringing up old topics to prevent them from being lost, they would be better to be made into stickies.


carl

[med-one]

Never heard or seen this before, either.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

"not considered appropriate on the internet"

Made me giggle. The internet is fun because 90% of it is inappropriate. It is the 10% appropriate content like Woodnet that holds my interest.

[Axehandle]

Ive heard of this before...to say the least.

In the world of Message Board Forums, necroposting is bad form at best and uncouth at worst.  It is really much ado about nothing that gives moderators and hyperposters something to rag new people about since what usually happens is a guy stumbles across some info in a forum by way of Google.  Reads said info and then feels compelled to respond so they register and make a response.  They either get caught up in the moment or just plain don't realize they are responding to a 4 year old thread of which there have been several dozen similar threads made since then.

Necroposting will often temporarily "bring a thread back to life". It is then known as a "zombie thread". Not unlike the Piggly Wiggly on Hilton Head Island. We call it a zombie Piggly Wiggly because they all got bought out by BI-LO....or we thought. They are all dead, some of them just don't know it yet.

"Not appropriate on the internet" is amusing. Trying to be a prima donna on the internet is an exercise in futility.

Like I said, much ado about nothing.

[EricU]

the forum I'm a moderator on has a "no zombie thread" policy.  We have a lot of turnover, most people hang out for no more than 5-6 years.  I suppose it's natural that newbies want to talk about controversial subjects, but if the people that were having the conversation are all gone and some newbie comes and lambastes them, it isn't really a fair argument.  I've also seen vendors show up 10 years later to defend themselves, those we usually just  ban. We don't delete old threads, just close them.  Since this forum deletes old threads, bumping them occasionally and getting new discussion usually isn't a bad thing.  Unless it's a sawstop thread or something like that.

People really don't like replying to zombie threads. A lot of times I have found myself typing the same thing, which is embarrassing. OTOH, we don't allow harassing of other people, especially newbies.

[Bill_Houghton]

Interesting.  Threads get resurrected on one forum I visit because members - sometimes new, but not always - have new information to offer on the subject.  I don't know anyone on that forum who thinks that's a bad thing.

I can see the objection to bringing old arguments back to life; I rarely enjoy those arguments when they're new!

Axehandle, according to the Piggly Wiggly website, their markets are franchises - maybe your local franchises were purchased by Bi-Lo, but it looks like they're still going strong in the South and parts of the Midwest. I looked on the website for South Carolina stores, and stopped counting South Carolina Piggly Wigglies at 25, and I wasn't halfway through the alphabet yet.

Digressing...there's a small town in Marin County, the county on the north end of San Francisco Bay's Golden Gate Bridge, that had a Piggly Wiggly when I was young. I have no idea how it migrated out here; maybe Mr. Pig was trying to break into new markets. It broke my heart when I drove through the town at some point, only to find the Pig had gone home, replaced by a market with a completely forgettable name.

[Skip J.]

"not considered appropriate on the internet"

Made me giggle. The internet is fun because 90% of it is inappropriate. It is the 10% appropriate content like Woodnet that holds my interest.

Ive heard of this before...to say the least.

In the world of Message Board Forums, necroposting is bad form at best and uncouth at worst.  It is really much ado about nothing that gives moderators and hyperposters something to rag new people about since what usually happens is a guy stumbles across some info in a forum by way of Google.  Reads said info and then feels compelled to respond so they register and make a response.  They either get caught up in the moment or just plain don't realize they are responding to a 4 year old thread of which there have been several dozen similar threads made since then.

Necroposting will often temporarily  "bring a thread back to life".  It is then known as a "zombie thread".  Not unlike the Piggly Wiggly on Hilton Head Island.  We call it a zombie Piggly Wiggly because they all got bought out by BI-LO....or we thought.  They are all dead, some of them just don't know it yet.

"Not appropriate on the internet" is amusing.  Trying to be a prima donna on the internet is an exercise in futility.

Like I said, much ado about nothing.

Well I apologize - I was trying to see if my old SS thread would show up the photos - and it does - but it won't let me say anything on it, and it is definitely a zombie thread.....

[Bibliophile 13]

Normally we keep WoodNet in line with Internet etiquette (such as it is), and we try to be especially nice and family-friendly.

That said, this forum (especially Hand Tools) is different from a lot of forums in that it's dedicated to old things, and often the old information remains just as valuable as new information.  And a lot of times, resurrecting an old topic of discussion yields new insights. 

Time was, threads expired after a year and were deleted, so "necroposting" was the only way to keep some threads alive at all.  Now that regular threads will not expire, there's no need for "bumping" old threads.  But in principle, we don't have any problem with members resurrecting old threads and in order to add to the discussion, raise new questions, or provide additional information.

[Mike Brady]

Thanks for the explanation Steve.