Topic: Why is reviving old threads a bad thing?

Why not delete the old threads and we wouldn't have this discussion.

Emphasis added.

I should add something: Yes, it is ok to revive a thread, but people will start noticing if you revive about 7 old threads. cough cough

I understand reviving an old thread is a bad idea if you have nothing to add to it, but I don't see why they should be completely banned. I mean, if you can find an discussion you want to contribute to but it's dead, shouldn't you be able to revive it?

Rule of Thumb:

• if the topic was controversial and somehow managed to die out on its own without being locked (another xbox vs. ps3 thread, for example, or something about politics or religion), don't revive
• if the topic was dated somehow (a topic with someone asking for urgent advice seven months ago, for instance), don't revive
• if all you have to add is 'me too', 'i agree', some other lame response, or something completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, don't revive
• if you have something interesting and (most importantly) relevant to add to the topic at hand, go for it _{(if you want to)}

i think the idea that we don't like people reviving old threads came about gradually because most of the time when an old thread is revived, it's either controversial or nothing of interest is added -- stuff like 'that's cool' or 'wow this thread is old', which gets deleted. however, that belief is pretty incongruous with practice, as we generally lock duplicate threads and refer the original posters to slightly older threads (though i personally let the new thread live if the older ones are like five months old) all the time.

anyway, as always, we review things on a case-by-case basis. there is no need to flip out in chat or report someone just for reviving an old thread, though if someone's revived sixteen threads from the dawn of NL just to say 'cool' in all of them, sure, we'd like to know about it. :3

_{long story short: reviving old threads isn't necessarily a bad thing.}