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necro-posting: good, bad, indifferent?   
dingus

dingus
Australia  


  12/11/2020  1

Do we have a policy or attitude towards resurrecting old / ancient discussion topics by posting new messages to them?

As most of you know, there is a wealth of practical information that has allowed us to maintain our enthusiasm for this ancient software (in my case C2). Some of that information has been proven by time to be incorrect; other stuff is incomplete--conversations lose momentum and taper off; once prolific and knowledgeable contributors drift away.

I'm pretty new here but it is a joy to be among enthusiasts, many of whom have selflessly shared what they've learned and the tools they've created to assist with that learning or to fix the problem they were exploring. As I scour the forums looking for tidbits, occasionally I read something that is incomplete or inaccurate and I'm tempted to update the thread so that future explorers have the most up-to-date information.

In many communities, necro-posting--resurrecting old threads with new questions and/or answers--is anathema. In my own view, this is counterproductive because topics get discussed in multiple fractured places and the accumulated knowledge/wisdom is diluted rather than concentrated. Future newbies who are seeking information, might be lucky enough to use a search term that scoops up all the dispersed information or they may be unlucky and land on something that is now known to be wrong.

dingus extrmly curious, want answers. :-)

 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  12/11/2020  1

Interesting question. I know I've necro-posted in the past, but I avoid resurrecting topics where KnyteTrypper posted as it still brings me some grief that he is gone. That's just my preference, though. I guess what you're proposing would be adding meaningful information to the threads, rather than a simple *bump*. Have you tried the Creatures Wiki as a knowledge repository source/area to add to?

My TCR Norns
 
Doringo
Lodestar

Doringo


 visit Doringo's website: Abacus & Ettinus
  12/31/2020  2

I'm of the personal view that necro-posting is something that should be done with care. I have absolutely no problems with the act of necro-posting itself, but I think that if someone should necro-post they should make sure their post is of a high enough effort or length. From what I've seen it generally bothers forum users in a lot of communities when someone necro-bumps a thread back to the top and their reply adds basically nothing new to the thread, like just a "yeah I agree" or similar low-effort post.

I think the reason why it tends to bother people is that people who frequent forums often remember old threads and when these threads are bumped they often have the expectation that the new post is going to be something interesting to read if that user went all those pages back to reply to it.

tl;dr: I'm fine with necroposting so long as the necroposts are effortposts.

 
Papriko
Peppery One

Papriko



  12/31/2020  3

I have a similar view on this as Doringo, kind of. The post doesn't necessarily require a ton of effort put into it, but there should be some kind of reason that warrants the necro-post. Those "lol idk" responses on 5 year old forum topics are a pain, but if you are adding new and relevant information or ideas which motivate further discussion and rekindle the conversation, then it is perfectly reasonable.
Another use case may be when you stumble into a very particular problem that has little to no mention elsewhere. You can use the old post to build upon and say "I tried all this, then this happened instead. What now?". That, in my opinion, would be a valid reason to resurrect an old topic as well.


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