SUGGESTION (Will result in less thread necromancy!)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Recently, I discovered that a thread was closed...because I had inadvertently necromancied it. Therefore, I have a simple suggestion:

If a thread has not been posted on in however long it takes for further posts to be necromancy (3 months, if I'm not mistaken), the page informs you of this fact. There is another forum that does just this, although its "necromancy cutoff" is 120 days.

Doing this would prevent inadvertent necromancies; I suspect that these are the majority. Personally, I have only knowingly thread necro'd once, and I really wanted to get that little useful (?) tidbit out there. I have also accidentally necro'd three or four threads. Therefore, I think that this idea would drastically reduce the number of thread necromancies, and it would definitely reduce them, at the very lest.

[KillianHawkeye]

Is expecting people to read the date of the last post really too difficult? :smallsigh:

[Sholos]

Better suggestion. Take the 5 seconds it takes to look at the date the previous post was made. Make sure it's not past the deadline.

EDIT: Ninja'd


Is expecting people to read the date of the last post really too difficult? :smallsigh:

I shouldn't think so.

[Fortuna]

It depends on one's posting and reading habits. In all honesty, I would support this if it was a quick (hour or two) kind of patch, but nothing ever is. In reality, the only things that take an hour or two are the things that look like they should take five minutes. Nothing ever takes only five minutes.

[Dreadn4ught]

I actually also accidentally committed the atrocity of thread necromancy. This is a good suggestion.


Is expecting people to read the date of the last post really too difficult? :smallsigh:

Sometimes, if you see something really amazing, you won't stop to look when you post on the thread.

[mucat]

Is expecting people to read the date of the last post really too difficult? :smallsigh:
Speaking on behalf of the AMPitP (Absent-Minded People in the Playground) community...yeah, kinda. I mean, asking people to make a habit of checking the date is reasonable. But expecting that they'll never forget to check isn't realistic.

A far as I know, I've never raised an old thread from the grave, but I'm actually kinda surprised I haven't. I can totally see myself doing it by accident.


That said, I imagine it's not a trivial thing to have the forum software automatically warn people about thread necromancy. Rich and the crew didn't code the software themselves, so unless it comes with that option built-in, trying to implement it would probably be more trouble than having the mods continue to close revived threads manually.

[Capt Spanner]

I seem to remember last time I put up a vBulletin board there was a built-in option to lock threads after a specific length of inactivity.

[Killer Angel]

I mean, asking people to make a habit of checking the date is reasonable. But expecting that they'll never forget to check isn't realistic.


To be fair, Thread Necromancy is only a "please don't" offense. It will not typically result in an Infraction upon the first necro... and once you receive a yellow card, probably you'll remember it the next time.

[mucat]

To be fair, Thread Necromancy is only a "please don't" offense. It will not typically result in an Infraction upon the first necro... and once you receive a yellow card, probably you'll remember it the next time.
Oh, absolutely. I don't think anyone was saying that necromancy causes infractions (except when it's intentional and repeated).

I think GreatWormGold was just proposing a way to save work for the mods and help the boards run smoother, not to reduce infractions. (And Killian's point, that I was responding to, was "Couldn't we achieve the same goal by asking people to just pay attention to post dates?")

[Killer Angel]

I think GreatWormGold was just proposing a way to save work for the mods and help the boards run smoother, not to reduce infractions.

Ah, I see... well, then we're in Rawhide's field of competence, for this is really a matter of:
1) can it be done (technical limitations for Bulletin board)?
2) can it be done easily (aka it's worth the time)?

[Zherog]

Ah, I see... well, then we're in Rawhide's field of competence, for this is really a matter of:
1) can it be done (technical limitations for Bulletin board)?

Well, I'm not Rawhide, but... Given enough time and money anything can be done. ;)

As for a more serious answer, yes I think such as mod is possible.


2) can it be done easily (aka it's worth the time)?

Define "easily." The change to the code sounds like a fairly minor alteration. (Although I admit that I know phpBB much better than vB when it comes to forum software.) However, as has been mentioned before, installing a mod isn't just a matter of simply hacking in the code and being done. There's testing and documentation and more testing. Oh, and also more testing.

I'm not privy to it, but based on what Rawhide has said in the past, it sounds like GitP has a spectacularly robust change control process for anything on the site. That's a great thing for stability; it's a bad thing if the goal is to do things quickly and easily.

[Rawhide]

I made this very suggestion back in September last year, it has been approved. It is on my list of things to do.