Why necro-posting is bad...

There are a number of reasons why necro-posting is considered bad netiquette, poor forum behavior, and is usually considered a bannable offense on a forum:

1) The act floods the front page, pushing legitimate discussion out of sight (most forum users only read the first page of any given forum, assuming that anything not on the front page is 'old' and not of interest or currently under discussion).

2) It is a tactic used by trolls for ages to deliberately co-opt and usurp any discussion with which they disagree or to insure enough churn on the first page as to make the process of attempting to follow discussions on the forum as difficult as possible (forum griefing).

3) It contributes to an atmosphere that dissuades lurker participation and encourages others to bandwagon the behavior, which further disrupts the forum.

4) It is rarely (if ever) a post made by someone adding new or relevant thought to the old discussion. Most often, it is someone trying to stir up argument or dissent or divisiveness by necroposting something that created the same when originally posted. The necroposter gets off on seeing people fall for the same thing over and over.

5) It is confusing to new members, who may not know to look at things like original date, view count, and who perceive a post with many replies as a good place to 'introduce' themselves with an on-topic reply (which usually results in getting scalded for being involved in the necroposting -- hardly a nice way to make one's entrance).

There are more reasons why it is bad, generally considered so, and why any forum interested in civility and community interaction consider it an actionable offense, but these are the top five and should do by way of explanation.

And this needed another new thread to say?

Thanks for your reply! I do see your points, but what if you geniunely see an old post and want to reply to it? What if you bump a post and new users learn something?

But, again, thanks and uh, noted!

Coulda just bumped your previous thread on the subject, Cienna

/108/62/52538/1.html

Isn't this thread just as bad, if not worse?

LOL! That would be ironic.

Well Cienna, now you're are gunna have the Litter Patrol after ya!

I think it rather illuminating to see articulate posts[ from a year ago complaining about stability and not being able to tell if it is a necro-post but for checking the posting date. It makes me a tad misty to see just how far we've come since then.

Exactly

I don't think that anyone has a real problem with genuinely replying to one or a few old posts every now and then.

What I see now though is all the current posts buried to the point that it's a waste of time to even bother to come here and look for anything of current interest.

The posts in this forum are generally not critical so when the time expenditure outpaces either the entertainment or usefulness then the forum starts to die.

Eh, I have no issue when someone genuinely wishes to resurrect an issue and bumps an old thread - in many cases this is the right thing to do, versus adding another thread. However, when you see several "necroposts" within a short time frame, I cock an eyebrow and start to wonder if there isn't another motive, such as to annoy someone who is playing annoying forum policeman...

A "circle of annoyance", if you will, and yes, then current topics get shoved off onto the back page, and the drama wagon starts to roll.

I rather enjoyed parsing the necro-threads. As Malachi pointed out, they were often "articulate". A pleasant change-of-pace.

May I suggest a new SL forum drama-game? Write no drama of your own design. Rather, parse old threads and piece together articulate quotes from the past to make your point.

Recycling drama is a civic and responsible thing to do.

Actually, this is a really good example of why necroposting is bad and new threads are good.

1 & 2 can be accomplished either way, so eliminating this practice isn't going to solve it.

3 Don't agree. Old posts discourage participation????

4 Again, don't agree. Anyway, new posts about old topics would do the same.

5 Give the new people some credit.

As Jonquille mentioned in a another thread - there's nothing wrong with bumping an old thread. It's when it's done repeatedly that it becomes an issue. I wouldn't even call bumping a single thread "necroposting", myself.

In fact, everything I've learned over the years tells me that it's proper netiquette to do so. You should search the forum and see if the topic has been discussed before, and if so, bump the appropriate thread. That is not true "necroposting". Real "necroposting" is when or or more threads are intentionally bumped, usually with an off-topic or very short reply, and generally designed to annoy a person(s) or push current topic down the list.

Honestly, when I was on at 4AM, and saw several old threads bumped to the top with simple responses like "NO", it was pretty obvious to me that someone was trying to get someone else's goat. That "someone else" has been patrolling in the wee hours trying to moderate the forums in the Linden's stead.

To me, it was obvious that the bumping of old threads was intended to annoy him (and yes, he himself can be EXTREMELY annoying, not to mention he himself places post in general that would be better suited to other sections, but that is not a legit reason to flood the front page with old threads), and not to sincerely discuss old topics.

From Urbandictionary.com:

1. necroposting
On a message board, posting something irrelevent on a really old topic to bring it to the top of the list topics. Name comes from the fact that you are bringing it back from the dead, thus Necro.

The regulation of annoying behavior is something I'd rather not be a part of.

As an annoying person who is annoyed by all people besides myself, this concept annoys me.

It's not regulation of annoying behavior. It's regulation of behavior that is detrimental to the usefulness of the forums.

Nor am I. I don't try to tell people where to post, or not to "necropost". In fact, I had some fun with it too. I was simply giving my observations based on many years of forum and bbs crawling. I would rather let LL sort it out. I wasn't overly annoyed myself with the thread bumping, for the record. Had the entire front page been flooded, I may have been.

I don't find the instances that are detrimental to outway the instances where it is not. It is not always detrimental and it is not particularly harmful, despite the apparent outrage.

I know you disagree with my stance and that is AOK.

Necro post sounds neat!

Like night of the living dead post!!!

like an army of 1000 zombies running amok in a small town sucking people's brains away from current thread topics!

NEW: From Crazy Ferran's Used Zombie Lot (yes, every word was capitolized)

THE NECROPOST ZOMBIE!! With "reply button kung fu grip"

This zombie wil wade effortlessly through the forums reawakening long dead posts to muddy the waters of current affairs. With one bite on the reply button NECROPOST ZOMBIE will convert numerous non-zombie posters into necroposter children!

Care and feeding of NECROPOST ZOMBIE is the same as camping chair zombie. Keep them moist to avoid the cracking and dry rot. Avoid direct sunlight. And, best of all they only need to eat long dead posts!

Now available in jaundice yellow!!

Ok, so if it a bad thing to do and someplaces actually ban you for doing it, why are the blasted things still open? We have such sophisticated software and the ability to report/close a thread at a moments notice yet there are no systematic rules in place in the software itself to take a thread's date of creation vs last posting date and calculate a closing date at which point that thread will be auto closed. If it isn't possible via software then perhaps the forum moderators themselves should manually close the threads based upon certian criteria. Oh wait, it is easier to take the firehouse approach to a problem, when the bell rings go put out the fires as opposed to a pro-active solution which would prevent the fires from starting back up in the first place, it is very difficult to catch a piece of wood back on fire if it is soaking in a bucket of water. Without some sort of system in place to prevent it from happening, no amount of manner classes will stop it from happening.

Because there are legitimate reasons for bumping old threads.

Ditto.

A year or more ago there was a well known, and well liked SL user who would sign onto the forums several times a day and type *BUMP* or something equally useless into a dozen or more old threads. I gave him some grief about it but it didn't seem to bother most people. He admitted to doing it purely out of boredom. Eventually he got bored with SL as well I think as I haven't heard much of him lately. I was convinced that checking the forums twice a week rather than twice a day was a better use of my time as long as people were using them as a cure for boredom.

I don't think you could AR someone for such annoying behavior back then, but I suggest people make liberal use of the facility now if you want the forums to remain interesting.

I agree though, that it makes more sense to bump (with NEW remarks however not just the word *BUMP*) an old thread rather than just start a new thread on the same subject.

Ferran, stay away from my brain. You cannot feed it to your zombies.

What DogSpot said.

coco