"Necrobumping" can be a good thing

Question

I just saw this thread in the "new posts" list.
I think it's a good thing that raj7095 posted the information that he did. Presumably that thread came up when searching for ways to install .deb packages on Arch. The information about dpkg in the AUR may help others who come across the same thread after a similar search in the future.
The "no necrobumping" policy has gone a bit overboard. It makes sense when someone posts questions in dead threads or solutions to extinct problems, but not when someone adds useful information which may still be relevant to anyone who finds the thread. Arch forum threads come up in many internet searches for specific questions. They're useful sources of information and many of them remain relevant for years or longer because they don't deal with anything too temporally specific (e.g.. bugs in older versions).
Note that I'm not criticizing tomk. He's just enforcing the policy as he's expected to do and most of the mods would probably have done the same thing.
Not all zombies are bad.
Last edited by Xyne (2010-03-28 19:03:25)

Answer 1

rson451 wrote:
I doubt anyone is going to put the time in to patch the bbs software to implement that, nor will the admins want to have to maintain it when they can just use the vanilla upstream defaults.
I personally am against necroposting.  Even if you don't count the posts that are people asking if the solution was ever found to a two year old problem, posts that do have answers are generally completely wrong or are irrelevant to the OP because of how software changes over time.
^ As often happens, I agree with rson451.
A few things I would like to add:
1. The current practice and guidelines for necrobumping were inherited by the current forum moderation team.  The policy was predicated by our predecessors.
2. The logic and practical application of the guideline hinges on the size of the moderation team in proportion to the size of the community, as well as the limitation of the forum software in its vanilla state.
Allowing necrobumping creates more work for the team, and would further necessitate the ability to split threads in order to fairly and effectively moderate them.
3. The community immediately and invariably reports necrobumps.
The vast majority of forum reports are to alert us, not to spam or abuse, but to necrobumps.
I realize that there is no perfect solution. However, those that believe that necrobumping can be a good thing must also realize that they are in the position of telling me what they need, whereas I am in the position of,  "I'm telling you what I've got."
As far as google searches, I think it is a bit unfair to bring that into the conversation. Whichever results are yielded from a google or forum search, it is ultimately the human being who must discriminate amongst data to arrive at whatever is the most relevant, (and current).
In my view, the community seems to be generally in favor of the current practice, which though imperfect, seems to be working.
I am also open to further discussion, though.