Thread necromancy!

[Jay200MPH]

Honestly, this board has more 'thread necromancy' (i.e. bringing years-old threads back from the dead) than any other I've ever been a member of.

I think this is because of the "similar threads" window that comes up in the bottom when you're reading. It frequently shows topics from as far back as the creation of the board. When I last looked it was offering me three from 2002, one from 2003, and one from 2005, with nothing to warn off the lazy reader who may not pay close attention to the "last posted to:" field. Click, read, reply, oops! Zombie thread.

Could this be changed to display only topics that have been posted to in, say, the last two months or so? Seems like that wouldn't be a huge amount of work and I suspect would eliminate the problem entirely.

- J

[Gillianren]

Originally Posted by Jay200MPH

Could this be changed to display only topics that have been posted to in, say, the last two months or so? Seems like that wouldn't be a huge amount of work and I suspect would eliminate the problem entirely.

I don't know about the first one, but you'd be wrong on the second. For example, we had a member once who would regularly resurrect literally dozens of five-year-old threads for "me, too!" postings. Many of these threads were almost entirely contributed to by people we haven't seen in two or more years, some of whom have been post-merger banned and therefore cannot come back to them. I grant you that thread necromancy has gotten worse in recent months, since that "related threads" thingy appeared, but it's always existed around here.

[geonuc]

When I read this thread, I thought - must be prompted by the resurrection of the second 0.99999~ = 1 thread (by a first-time poster).

But neither of those show a Similar Threads box. For me, anyway.

[Jay200MPH]

Ya, that was the one I was referring to. I had a reply all written up before I'd bothered to check the date. I'd bet a sack of smack that one came from the "related threads" box.

Gillian, you're probably right. Can't weed out idiots with a line of programming. But it would help.

- J

[Musashi]

That may have also come from the recent link in the other 0.999~=1 thread.

[Kaptain K]

Some thread resurrections come from Google searches.