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#51 2010-03-31 14:55:17

drcouzelis
Member
From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
Website

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

I haven't heard much about the technical possibilities.

CAN the Arch Linux forum software show a warning that a thread is six months old before someone posts? Can it do this only in technical forums?

...because if it can't, then that option doesn't even matter.

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#52 2010-03-31 19:20:13

ataraxia
Member
From: Pittsburgh
Registered: 2007-05-06
Posts: 1,553

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

I'd like to note that this is the only forum I know of with a strong anti-necrobumping rule like we have, and there's got to be a reason for that. With a community growing as much as this one is, the increasing volume of posts makes it way too hard to keep up the same kind of moderation policy as for a smaller group.

I'm not really advocating a particular position - more suggesting that there exists a "de facto forum best practices" out there in the internet at large, and we might want to determine what those are, and implement them here. (Unfortunately, this also implies that we should replace FluxBB with something more mainstream and featureful...)

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#53 2010-03-31 19:39:43

litemotiv
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2008-08-01
Posts: 5,026

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

i agree with ataraxia. personally, i would love a system like stackoverflow where useful questions and answers are rewarded and poor/offtopic replies are auto-modded down, but that might be too big a leap from the current way of doing things..

http://stackoverflow.com/faq


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#54 2010-03-31 21:57:46

Acecero
Member
Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 1,373

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

I will make one final opinion on all of this.

What is wrong with just leaving an old topic open for a different purpose?

* No unnecessary linking between topics
* No additional forum features
* Any information that can be gained from necrobumping, can be added to the wiki and therefore will show up on Google.

Lets keep it simple, like Misfit suggests.

Misfit138 wrote:

* If you do decide to necrobump, ensure that the information is in fact relevant to the original, helpful and does not create a disjointed thread

Does this seem to sum up a general consensus??

Yes it does for me and it is the most simplest.

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#55 2010-04-05 00:33:49

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

Implemented.
The new guideline is more lenient, relying on good judgment.

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#56 2010-04-05 00:59:40

ngoonee
Forum Fellow
From: Between Thailand and Singapore
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 7,354

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

Many thanks, o ye great dictators of the bbs smile

*goes to set his alarm to necro-bump this thread after 6 months of inactivity


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#57 2010-04-05 03:32:55

gogi-goji
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2009-10-20
Posts: 73
Website

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

Old Threads/'Necro-Bumping' wrote:

Do your part to keep the forums tidy. Posting in old threads, or 'necrobumping' is generally discouraged in the technical issue subforums, since it can potentially create disjointed 'zombie' information; outdated posts with data which is no longer relevant due to Arch's rolling nature, combined with more recent posts reflecting more current circumstance. Further, technical support threads should remain succinct, and multiple pages are to be avoided if possible. If you judge that your information is related, but more up-to-date, start a new thread and link to the old if appropriate. If the information you are providing is already available in the wiki or covered in other topics you should refrain from posting. If you do decide to necrobump, ensure that the information is in fact relevant to the original, helpful, and does not create an excessively long, disjointed thread.

I know that you just implementied this change, but I'd like to quickly throw in my two cents.  Links both ways, especially from old to new, would be incredibly useful in many cases.  If a person was to Google a question, and come up with an old thread as a result, they will still not know how to solve their problem.  The old thread, with no link to new information, would be useless to their search.  Plus, with a link to the new thread, the new thread will become more prominent in search results, making it more useful for people looking for help.  I do understand, though, that a policy like this could make it harder for our moderators.  Linking to old threads would resurrect them, and could easily lead to people unwittingly posting in the outdated threads, making things messy.  However, I think that linking to up to date information is worth the potential for mess.

Also, if some kind of warning could be printed on old threads (perhaps some bold red text labeling it as old) but they still are kept open, accidental necro'ing could be avoided.  This would likely be difficult to implement, though.


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#58 2010-04-05 04:11:52

Acecero
Member
Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 1,373

Re: "Necrobumping" can be a good thing

gogi-goji wrote:

I know that you just implementied this change, but I'd like to quickly throw in my two cents.  Links both ways, especially from old to new, would be incredibly useful in many cases.  If a person was to Google a question, and come up with an old thread as a result, they will still not know how to solve their problem.  The old thread, with no link to new information, would be useless to their search.  Plus, with a link to the new thread, the new thread will become more prominent in search results, making it more useful for people looking for help.  I do understand, though, that a policy like this could make it harder for our moderators.  Linking to old threads would resurrect them, and could easily lead to people unwittingly posting in the outdated threads, making things messy.  However, I think that linking to up to date information is worth the potential for mess.

Also, if some kind of warning could be printed on old threads (perhaps some bold red text labeling it as old) but they still are kept open, accidental necro'ing could be avoided.  This would likely be difficult to implement, though.

afaik from reading the new implementation, your point has not been stated directly, but generally stated right here:

If you do decide to necrobump, ensure that the information is in fact relevant to the original, helpful, and does not create an excessively long, disjointed thread.

In this case the necrobump post with the link to the new thread will be relevant to the original old thread. It will be up to the new thread to contain helpful information. Necrobumping with a link to a new thread won't create a long disjointed thread, because the link would give incentive for members to post more up-to-date information in the new thread.

Last edited by Acecero (2010-04-05 04:18:13)

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