Why should the date on a forum thread determine it's worth?

[Thorthoth]

Go on, here's a thread where you can explain your opinions on the topic.

It's a brand-new thread too, as of today, ...but that will change, won't it?.
Still, for some, the date itself appears to be a thread's most important characteristic and so I mention it here.

[Thorthoth]

I'd like to start by saying that with all else being equal, a thread of older origin is MORE VALUABLE than a thread more recently conceived. This is due to the invaluable historical content and context that cannot be duplicated by a more recent post even if dedicated to same topic.

Furthermore, there is great concern among we forumophiles about the loss if these valuable older posts, due to ill-conceived deletions.
Among the best ways to protect our older posts is to keep them alive or revive them by bumping/vivobumping them into a place higher up on the thread queue.
Neglecting old posts by not giving them this necessary rejuvenation is thoughtless and wrong-headed, and can only lead to these threads being lost or forgotten.

[mrswdk]

Agreed. Far more important in determining a post's worth is the name of the poster.

[tzor]

Go on, here's a thread where you can explain your opinions on the topic.

I think of threads as conversations and discussions. Remember that I'm an "old fart" and my original experience on such things came from usenet newsgroups.

They start up, they get active and then, for one reason or another they stop being active. They cease being "news" and become "history." And history gets old quickly. It also gets messy quickly. There is a lot of chaff and very little wheat.

So I'm used to old newsgroups deleting old threads. I'm used to an entire group going out of business and deleting old threads. (Gather comes to mind.)

[Thorthoth]

Go on, here's a thread where you can explain your opinions on the topic.

I think of threads as conversations and discussions. Remember that I'm an "old fart" and my original experience on such things came from usenet newsgroups.

They start up, they get active and then, for one reason or another they stop being active. They cease being "news" and become "history." And history gets old quickly. It also gets messy quickly. There is a lot of chaff and very little wheat.

So I'm used to old newsgroups deleting old threads. I'm used to an entire group going out of business and deleting old threads. (Gather comes to mind.)

That seems to be exactly what somebody at CC just tried: Delete all the older posts. Perhaps if nobody was ever going to read or post to them again that would be justified...
But some posts that originated over a decade ago were recently revived or bumped, those threads were ipso facto not dead or outdated... and they were also saved from deletion.

Ergo, 'Vivo-bumping' saves the threads of history and keeps them relevant into the present day.

[2dimes]

Bumping a thread that was just conversation of something no one remembers does not make that a great nostalgic thread.

Some threads have content that is interesting or funny. Sometimes that lasts.

Sometimes something was hilarious at the time or between those that knew what it was about, then they can't be understood once context is gone.

The no context quotes thread was the opposite, it was funny because you removed a quote from context then it looked like the author wrote something else.

Most of the time malt whisky improves with age. That does not mean a jar of old mayonnaise is going to be the same, just because it was made at the same time as the whisky.

[KoolBak]

As an example...the beer thread. We were a group of fiends discussing his upcoming function...ELEVEN years ago. That conversation, and most of the people involved, are done / gone.

And, to boot, your ridiculous comment about piss was completely uncalled for.

Any other questions?

[Thorthoth]

As an example...the beer thread. We were a group of fiends discussing his upcoming function...ELEVEN years ago. That conversation, and most of the people involved, are done / gone.

And, to boot, your ridiculous comment about piss was completely uncalled for.

Any other questions?

Don't be dumb. People still talk about beer, Not to mention the myriad ways that posters joke and riff on a thread. Very few threads don't have some degree of topic shift over time. That's the way human conversation works, with or without pauses in the middle.

[riskllama]

sweet riffing, man...

[Thorthoth]

sweet riffing, man...

Indeed it is. Let the riff flow free forever.

[tzor]

That seems to be exactly what somebody at CC just tried: Delete all the older posts.

I'm not going to talk about what happened other to say that I've seen it elsewhere and I am used to it.

Look, we have the same problem with short term posts. There was a time when in a lot of systems you had to "bump" posts just to keep them visible. Then someone came up with new idea of having a "pin" and pinning the posts that the moderators thought exceptionally worthy on the top.

I think we need something similar for long term posts of note. I think it is insane to think we can preserve all threads for all time in the main searchable forums. Having a mechanism for long term preservation of threads that are actually going to be worth something long after they are written (and frankly, this post right here isn't worth preserving). But then who determines what is worthy to preserve? How much effort is it going to take to go through that effort?

When I was in High School long before the age of the dinosaur (no seriously, Barney didn't appear until 13 years after my H.S. Diploma) there was no internet (and the personal computer was the "Commodore PET") and certainly no Google. I used microfiche in order to search the NY Times archives. Archiving and partitioning is the only reasonable solution to the problem and I'm not even sure then that the effort is worth it.

[tzor]

I would like to bring up the topic of the most recent necrobump and note the irony that the original link in the first post no longer works. Yes even Reuters doesn't keep it's articles in the same place FOREVER.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to do a Snoopy Dance.

[2dimes]

Has anyone ever been owned by tzor before? This is savage.

[Thorthoth]

I would like to bring up the topic of the most recent necrobump and note the irony that the original link in the first post no longer works. Yes even Reuters doesn't keep it's articles in the same place FOREVER.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to do a Snoopy Dance.

A broken link is just a broken link. Some are broken from starting-end error and some from finish-end error, but in either case, the date of the page is not directly relevant.

[Dukasaur]

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Couldn't find the old Cinco de Mayo thread to necrobump, so I figured this is the next best thing!

[DoomYoshi]

https://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=50573
https://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=50584
https://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=170323

[Dukasaur]

Bizarre how you manage to do that.

[riskllama]

quit it, you guys.

[Symmetry]

Necrobumping is bad for several reasons:

1) It creates the idea that a thread is part of a current discussion
2) It artificially latches on to a natural discussion to promote a point, without fairly for the fact that the conversation is long over between the original participants.
3) It's deeply unfair to take the last comments in a conversation out of the context in which they were discussed, and then to demand that the necrobumper's comments are somehow a continuation.
4) It bumps more recent conversations off the list of current discussions, as well as off the main page.
5) It's a cheap way of making a post seem like it has popular backing and engagement, when it's really just tacked on to an old thread.
6) It relies on the inability, and/or unwillingness of the posters who created and furthered the conversation to reply. Some of the posters may have left the site; forgotten the facts required; or simply have considered the conversation over with, for example.

[Dukasaur]

Necrobumping is bad for several reasons:

1) It creates the idea that a thread is part of a current discussion
2) It artificially latches on to a natural discussion to promote a point, without fairly for the fact that the conversation is long over between the original participants.
3) It's deeply unfair to take the last comments in a conversation out of the context in which they were discussed, and then to demand that the necrobumper's comments are somehow a continuation.
4) It bumps more recent conversations off the list of current discussions, as well as off the main page.
5) It's a cheap way of making a post seem like it has popular backing and engagement, when it's really just tacked on to an old thread.
6) It relies on the inability, and/or unwillingness of the posters who created and furthered the conversation to reply. Some of the posters may have left the site; forgotten the facts required; or simply have considered the conversation over with, for example.

On the other hand, when someone has something very trivial to say, like "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Cinco de Mayo", it seems really pompous to create an entire new thread just for that. It's far better to add such things to an existing thread than to clutter the place up with a new one.

[riskllama]

said, "quit it, you guys".

[2dimes]

On the other hand, when someone has something very trivial to say, like "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Cinco de Mayo", it seems really pompous to create an entire new thread just for that. It's far better to add such things to an existing thread than to clutter the place up with a new one.

You mean back when we all had a functioning search feature, not just DoomYoshi.

[notyou2]

I miss Thor

[mrswdk]

poor guy

[jonesthecurl]

I miss Thor

He's thorly missed.