Necroposting

If all it takes is a few weeks for a thread to be considered dead... then please put in an auto-lock feature if you don't want it to be posted in.

As far as I'm concerned, if it shows up on the front page of a section or is a link through from another active thread... then it's fair game to be posted in if it hasn't been locked already; especially if it holds relevance to current issues. As well as if it comes up as a netiquette-based search result for something I would like to post but not flood the relevant section with.

Thanks.

I'm not a mod here, but as a rule of thumb, I consider necroposting on the forums I run when you "resurrect" a thread that has been inactive for more than 3 months. Anything other than that is fair game for a repost. Of course, on forums with high traffic, I guess that would be a far too long margin.

They don't need to be auto-locked, but they should have a humorous necromancy-related picture added to them

On one hand I'm glad to see that someone is actually SEARCHING before posting, but it's highly unlikely they couldn't find a more recent thread than one made 3, 6, 9 months ago and theres no excuse for necroing 2 year old threads.

IMO, it's only necroposting when bringing up an old thread with some dumb irrelevant comment like "RISE FROM TEH GRAVE!1" or replying to the OP with information that wasn't available/true when the post was made.

That said, I'd rather there be no time limit on what's considered necroposting but rather the relevance of the post that bumps it. Honestly, I'd rather be consolidating comments or ideas about a subject in one thread rather than making a new one ever couple of weeks that people will whine and complain and tell you to 'use the search function!' etc. etc.

My two cents.

I think that a necro post no matter how old should be considered ok so long as it starts generating (or regenerating I suppose) a genuine discussion. If you look at the "How do you name a character" thread it fits perfectly. It was a necropost but immediately fired up interest with multiple people giving their take on the question.

When on the other hand the new posts in the thread mostly consist of statements about resurrecting the dead and forum rules then it should be locked.

And I think some Moderators take the zero tolerance policy approach using only the rules and not common sense. They are the types who would expel a 10 year old from school for bringing a gun to class. A 1 inch long gun that belonged to one of their Transformers toys.

That's about how I've always felt about it: if the topic is still relevant, and the new post restarts a actual conversation, then it's fine and the topic should be left alone . If it's clearly not relevant (say, someone asking a question that's long since been answered) and/or the new post doesn't add anything (say, a short "I agree" post), then that's a Bad Necro, and the topic should be closed.

There have been run in's like this on the fan art boards too. Old threads brought to life for new discussion as new art or facts are revealed and the threads get locked. If a new post is irrelevent to the threads content then sure lock it up. If not let it live. People are always complaining about others not doing searches on topics but bringing up an old thread about a topic for new ideas and debate is liable to get it locked. Furthermore, we've, on one occasion, been told we are not allowed to discuss the forum rules. To see this thread has gone on for more than one page is a bit of a surprise to me. So, in before the lock.