Topic: Thread Necromancy and You!

By 'necromancy' I am referring to the attempted revival or a 'bump' of a thread over two years old for no reason other than to cause confusion or disruption to the forums. We've always let it slide before, just cleaned up the mess and archived the topics in question, but lately a few of you have been finding it hilarious to find the oldest threads possible and bump them with crap like 'tee hee look at how old this thread is' and it has to stop.

The bottom line is that this behavior is disruptive and if we catch you doing it, we're going to be handing down temp-bans. I've handed out a few so far today (the main instigators, from what i've seen — and cleaned up — lately), so hopefully things will start going back to normal around here. :3

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:

• if you are a new user coming in from a Google search or something (trust me, we can tell the difference) and you accidentally bump an old or outdated thread in hopes of striking up more discussion, we'll let it slide or end the discussion ourselves with an explanation why, same for locked/redirected threads.
• if you are an established user with good intentions, you're honestly adding to an existing discussion that is perhaps years old, this is also okay depending on the thread in question. as with the aforementioned, if we feel the need to lock/redirect we will at least give you an explanation for doing so.
• if you are an established user who is in it for the lulz (and again, we can tell who you are, guys), you will wind up temp-banned. No warnings, no explanations. We're done cleaning up after you.

I'll be around later in case anyone has any questions. Thanks in advance, guys :3

Thank you, thank you so much for finally putting an end to this...

Good work guise Tingle, Tingle Kooloo Limpah!

So reviving a thread that's over a year old is bad?

Not to give out names (Even though it's not really a secret), but the instigators are usually decent users, shame they botched their forum return so badly.

Also a shame the mods have to clean up the mess, I reported all of the threads that I found, good luck.

If you're not contributing to the discussion of that topic, yes, it's bad.

I assume posting on old threads of the "Unofficial official [game] thread" kind (like asking a question, reviving to say you beat it or just the classic is anyone still playing this game?) would count as a point #2.

Gotcha.

So if I posted in Project Café thread "lol who knew this could turn out so bad" just for the lulz that's a temp ban? Just wanted to clear things up for future reference

I gotta ask, is there any way Nintendo Life will have an auto archive system for threads over a year or two old?

It is if the only purpose reviving such threads is simply to spam the list of threads without any constructive reason

We've brought it up with Ant before, so far as i know it's a part of his (already lengthy) list of Things to Do. Necromancy has never really been a high-ranking problem before is all, most users here know better than to trawl the depths of the forums to dredge up old and outdated topics and we've relied heavily in users setting good examples for one another by not doing so. On the rare occasion we had a user who wanted to play the 'lol old topic is old' game, usually they'd get the hint when the threads they've bumped are suddenly inaccessible and their fun is over, they move on to active discussions. We had a few users not getting the hint this time, though, so we're trying to nip the problem before it gets any farther out of hand. Hopefully they'll be more constructive upon their return :3

Anyway, no word on when an auto-archive system will happen, but I'm sure Ant will surprise us with it someday :3

@torotoid64: Not exactly sure off the top of my head what thread you're referring to or how long it's been dormant, but a good rule of thumb would be to please post constructively while you're here. Given the hypothetical idea that you'd be posting in an outdated thread for the sole purpose of laughing at the topic at hand in general... this is not constructive posting and may get you a temp-ban. I'd suggest letting a sleeping thread lie :3

@Morphbug: You are correct, we would either let it go or lock/redirect to a more recent active thread (to avoid the 'no duplicates' rule, and also to get you in touch with people who perhaps are playing the game still :3). As long as we can tell you are genuinely trying to contribute to the topic or to be constructive, we will assume good faith.

edit: just realized the sever lack of a question mark at the end of this post. So, is it correct, mods?

It depends. If the post in question is genuine for that particular game's thread, we will most likely let it slide. The only exception I can think of is if there is a more recent active thread for the same game.

In general, we don't want a 5-year old thread to be revived just so that you can say "I agree" or "Yes".

What's a general rule of thumb regarding reviving an old topic and making a new one?

Maybe this should be stickied so we can find this if we need to?

Maybe an addition to the Community Rules should be considered instead. Don't want too many threads to be stickied.

@navi: rule of thumb on that has always been six months or so. a year, we'd take it on a case-by-case basis, and if the new duplicate has a stronger conversation going or more pages, we may lock the old thread instead of the new. Also, there are a few threads that historically have gone through periods of dormancy but we will always lock/redirect toward, like the 'favorite user' and 'nl users you haven't seen in a while' threads or the xbox and playstation ongoing fan threads in Other Gaming.

The specific issue we're referencing here is users digging back to threads from 2009-2012 for no reason other than to confuse people and/or cause a ruckus. People have been reporting them due to the disruption, so we're taking care of the problem. :3

thanks guys, dragon and lz

When I made a comment on just getting DKC Returns I wasn't sure whether to bump the original or make a new thread. It didn't seem worth a new one so I bumped. Hope it was ok.