Can you get banned for necroing old threads?

rustydrifter10 said:Someone bumped this thread just to spam, and then a few people jumped in with some random off-topic talk about bourbon. I think the posts were deleted for good reason. Your point is fine on its own, but it shouldn't have happened in an active thread—not like this one where we're questioning why it was even revived.

So, if a thread gets bumped between 10 AM and 11 PM when there aren't any moderators active on the US site, and it manages to get at least eight constructive replies, does that mean we can actually enjoy a fun discussion where a bit of off-topic chatter is allowed? 🤷

I'm just wondering why activity in one revived thread (the one I won't link to just to be safe) is tolerated as a space for a small group of users to have their own private chats, while other attempts to revive threads (like the one I did link) aren't even given a fair shot at becoming something useful and fun.🤔

Sophia Smith29 said:...
I mean, I'm wondering why activity on one revived thread (which I won't link just to be safe) is tolerated as a place where a small group of users can have their private little chats, while attempts to revive another thread (the one I actually linked) aren't even given a chance to turn into something fun or useful? 🤔

The thread was started with this text:

yeah, I think he's definitely feeling the blues!
hmm
how can we help you out, man? 😢

So, here is the direct response to that 2008 post.
A few online commenters jumped in after that.

If you're going to revive a general topic that could still be relevant today, then the post itself needs to be general. It should be a personal take on the subject.

The thread she doesn't want to name continued with this post:

I've been planning to DM a super-user who has way more posts than me for a few days now
just need to figure out what to say lol, maybe this thread will help

And yeah, it's a troll thread—the kind of thing we occasionally leave up without strict moderation so people can just have some fun.
Do you see the difference?

Claiming that "a small number of users" are having "private chats" is total nonsense.

northerncyclist2 said:20 seconds? 🤣

Have you never heard of multi-selection? I bet I could get that done in 3 minutes (I used to be a mod on vBulletin, so I know what I'm talking about).

The point is, we don't want to lock every single old thread. So, multi-selection isn't an option.

It’s not an issue for me to lock a thread if someone revives it and it's necessary.
I don't recall anyone in the US getting a warning for that.

Robert Nelson63 said:Posting this small group of users and their private banter is just misleading, because it isn't the truth.

The subject I’m avoiding mentioning is the private chatter from a few users over the last three days (I won't point out that more than half of them hold "admin roles" 🙄), and it has absolutely nothing to do with why this topic was originally started or bumped. It doesn't add anything to the subforum either. It just serves as a way for that handful of people to trade inside jokes. If anything, it's just acting like a chat thread for them. 🤷 🤔 😳

If you really want, I can pull the exact stats on who wrote what during that specific window, but honestly, it'll take me at least an hour to dig all that up. ☕

Sophia Smith29 said:...

Oh, I see how it is. It’s perfectly fine when Democrats are running the show, but the second Republicans get involved, suddenly everything is an issue.
You should have just come out and said that from the start to save us all the trouble. 🙂

Chloe Booth72 As stated by:
Ah, I see. So whenever I start a thread that actually provides some entertainment for the blue-check crowd, suddenly everything is just fine, isn't it?

You could just let her go, really. It’s not as if you wouldn't have done the same thing back when you shut down that thread about the local elections in a city like Seattle—which, if I recall correctly, was actually quite entertaining, unless you consider common sense to be a nuisance? We already have an active thread for this topic, so there is absolutely no need to start another one. 🙂 It was actually a decent topic, and people were just having a bit of fun; nobody was being bothered by it in the slightest. Honestly, given how things have unfolded, Matthew Chavez’s call-out is entirely justified. Perhaps as a consequence, you should consider wiping that entire thread clean and starting over? Or better yet, why not return to your signature policy of keeping one discussion per subforum? It would certainly simplify things. 🧐

Oh, please, don't mind me. Everything is perfectly fine. By all means, carry on with your little diversions, you hypocrites. 😳

I had something else on my mind—another rather pertinent question... ah, here it is!
At what point exactly does a thread officially become "stale"? Is the determination based on the duration since the very first post was made, or should we be looking at the interval following the most recent contribution? 🍿

casualwolf12 said:...
NOPE, EVERYTHING IS FINE, just go ahead and enjoy yourselves, you hypocrites. 😳
...

🙄

No thread like this lasts forever.
They all burn out or get locked, sooner or later.

Go check the Seattle thread and see how long I let it sit.

Damn, expecting people to be even slightly realistic is clearly a pipe dream.

Besides, who’s stopping you from posting in that thread?
Actually, you might be, because I'm about to ban you since you're posting in a thread reserved for mods. ☕

casualwolf12 said:...
but what I meant was, I had one more good question... aha, here it is!
so at what point does a thread become "old"? and is it based on the time since the last post or the very first post? 🍿

It’s clearly stated in the rules. A thread can be from 2002 as long as it doesn't deal with issues relevant to the users currently on the forums.
And if you revive it, don't just quote some kid who now has a wife and five children; write an actual introduction.

So, yeah, it's allowed if the topic is general.

Robert Nelson63 said:🙄

No thread of this nature lasts forever.
Everything eventually burns out—whether rapidly or slowly—and gets locked away.

If you look back at that old discussion about Rijeka, you'll see just how long I left it unattended.

Honestly, expecting people to maintain even a shred of realism seems to be nothing short of a utopia.

Besides, who is actually stopping you from posting in that thread?
Perhaps I should, given that I'll have to issue you a warning shortly for posting in a section reserved strictly for moderators. ☕

It was far too brief, 🙂 and this massive forum debate turned sour so quickly 🙂
that if the thread had actually survived until today, it would be translated on every major global forum; millions of tourists would flock here just to witness the original masterpiece, and NASA would probably send the Voyager probe to engrave the entire transcript onto the Golden Record for aliens to find.

But no, apparently one single chat is enough, even if the world hasn't seen a more pathetic conversation than this one. 🙂

I hope you feel at least a little bit of shame. 🙂

And thanks for the clarification. 🙂 🙂

casualwolf12 said:...
I hope you have at least an ounce of shame. 🙂
...

Not in the slightest.
The bottom line is that the author was spewing Nazi slogans himself. ☕

If only you knew how many people thanked me for locking his thread. 😳

So what’s even the point of keeping all those ancient threads hanging around?
The forum's got over 10k topics, right?
I'd guess maybe 1k of them actually see any life on a weekly basis.
We really ought to be purging the old stuff—it would make searching and actually reading through the site way easier.
I'm a new face here, sure, but I spend plenty of time on other forums too.
The fewer threads there are, and the more we can consolidate discussions into just one or two main hubs, the better. It keeps things clean.
Like, I try to check out the football PDF section, wanting to see what's going on, and what do I find? Over 100 pages of clutter.
It’s a total mess.
Right now, I'm stuck just circling the few active threads, when there could easily be dozens of gems buried in those 100 pages just waiting for someone to pick them up.
That’s just my two cents, but honestly, this clutter is a huge downside. It stops people from actually getting the full value out of what this forum has to offer.
Anything dead or pointless should just be deleted.
Later.

George Moore7 said:...
I just opened up the soccer subforum to see what's going on, and there are over 100 pages of threads.
That's absolutely ridiculous.

Ever tried using the search bar?

Sophia Smith29 said:Let’s say I stumble upon a thread in some subforum that’s still incredibly relevant, one that was opened with a genuinely high-quality introductory post... just a topic of a general nature. 😉

And then I feel the urge to contribute. So, I write a post that stays perfectly on-topic—nothing offensive, nothing redundant to the overall vibe of the subforum. Is it really possible to face a warning or even a ban just for that?

🤷

A ban for reviving an old thread?😲 Honestly, even a warning seems a bit excessive... shouldn't a moderator just delete the post and let the thread sink back into obscurity if, say, you're just answering a question someone asked six years ago...🤷

Robert Nelson63 said:Ever tried using the search bar?

What's even the point of that?
I'm not looking for anything specific, I just want to get a feel for what kind of topics people actually talk about here.