Preventing Necreoposting?

[Ragevx1]

How might we go about on preventing the infamous 'necreoposting' well, it has been done before and has been proven useful in the past, present and will probably keep being useful and efficient. One word can speak for itself. "Lock".

How about locking posts that are 6 months old or more, and that have been answered? So users will know which posts are outdated, and which are the currently on going. Its simple and efficient in the fight against Necreoposting, wouldn't you say?

[vkladchik]

I don't see what the problem with necroposting is. Let people write what they want, where they want.

[ニッキー]

I've been wondering the same thing... if it's frowned upon here so much, surely it'd be best to just prevent it in the first place. Not that I understand why it's a big deal anyway, the other forums I read don't seem to care, this is the only place I've seen people apologising for posting in a thread just a couple of weeks after the previous post.

[coco]

Related thread is here.

As far as I know, this seems to be the forum rule.

1.5: Old threads can and should only be revived if the post benefits the community (Posts like "oh, thanks. lol. I see." etc... aren't beneficial). So unless your post is bringing up important information, or asking for better clarification, then we request you refrain from posting in old threads

[clay]

Related thread is here.

As far as I know, this seems to be the forum rule.

1.5: Old threads can and should only be revived if the post benefits the community (Posts like "oh, thanks. lol. I see." etc... aren't beneficial). So unless your post is bringing up important information, or asking for better clarification, then we request you refrain from posting in old threads

The rule there is pretty much my opinion on this issue. Of course if a majority of people dislike necroposting for any reason, we can review the rule.

[chikara]

If necroposting was prevented then the anime/manga fanbois would have nothing to do when they first join the fora and I would not be able to post comments on their necroposts

Rule 1.5 works for me and if it is ignored we could apply Rule 303 (virtually of course)

Edit: On queue here is a perfect example. First post by new member Nirotu revives a thread that has been dead for three months. Surprise, surprise it is an anime thread. That particular thread should go into TheJapanesePage's Hall of fame for japanfreak's 2 year 2 month necropost.

[Ragevx1]

I guess, but lots of people here do mind necroposting

[phreadom]

On the list of possible offenses, it has to be about the most irrelevant I can think of.

There are perfectly valid reasons to do it and it's not hard for someone to understand the concept laid out in the guidelines already, and frankly even then there is really no "harm" done. It's a minor irritation at best and one which does no harm to the learning going on.

Much more valid things to worry about are courtesy and grammar, spelling etc... after taking into account native language of course.

I don't think I'll ever understand why people get so grumpy about it.

[Mike Cash]

The only time it really bugs me is when someone revives an old thread to answer a specific question from a specific poster.....who quit coming here loooong ago.

[Yudan Taiteki]

I don't think I'll ever understand why people get so grumpy about it.

It's a waste of my time, because if I open a thread that I don't remember reading, I will often go back and look at the thread -- which turns out to be a waste if someone bumped it to answer a question that was asked 2 years ago. I also don't like having threads near the top of the list whose posters are not around to participate anymore.

[NocturnalOcean]

I don't think I'll ever understand why people get so grumpy about it.

It's a waste of my time, because if I open a thread that I don't remember reading, I will often go back and look at the thread -- which turns out to be a waste if someone bumped it to answer a question that was asked 2 years ago. I also don't like having threads near the top of the list whose posters are not around to participate anymore.

So you mean posts from 2 years ago contains nothing of relevance?
Even if the original poster is not among us anymore, doesn't mean the information provided isn't useful for other members on the board.

And there is one thing I have found a bit ironic. Some people really hate the necroposting, but at the same time advocates that people need to use search function to see whether what you are going to post is already on the forum or not.

Though, I have to agree it can be a bit annoying to read an entire thread, then finding out everything was from 2-3 years ago.

A suggestion is that people doing a necropost, should start their post with: "This is a necropost".

[phreadom]

A suggestion is that people doing a necropost, should start their post with: "This is a necropost".

Good idea, although I've always hated the term "necropost"... it just sounds like a rotting piece of flesh... very unpleasant.

I'd probably say something more like "This is a response to an old post, but I had a question about it..." or something like that.

The term "necroposting" seems to intentionally imply a negative connotation.

We could just as easily call it "Phoenixposting" and give it a more positive connotation, that of gloriously reviving a thread from the ashes of the old! haha

Anyway... I'm rambling. I just wanted to agree that it sounds like a good idea to request that if you're responding to a post that is several months or a year or more old, that you would preface your message by pointing that fact out. Even I will agree that it's a little irritating to find that out sometimes after you start writing your response, or after you post.

I also agree that it's a bit of a contradiction to chastise people for not searching for old posts before starting a new one, but then to also chastise them when they do actually search and respond to an old post. I know that technically "necroposting" just refers to responding to an old post and not having anything of value to say, such as "me too!", but...

Anyway... I've spent too much time rambling on this already. (I should know better than to post right when I wake up. Brain not working yet.)

[chikara]

Good idea, although I've always hated the term "necropost"... it just sounds like a rotting piece of flesh... very unpleasant.

I'd probably say something more like "This is a response to an old post, but I had a question about it..." or something like that.

The term "necroposting" seems to intentionally imply a negative connotation.

We could just as easily call it "Phoenixposting" and give it a more positive connotation, that of gloriously reviving a thread from the ashes of the old! haha .....

Yes, "necroposting" intentionally has negative connotations.

"Phoenixposting" is very good. "Lazarusposting" is another possibility

...... I also agree that it's a bit of a contradiction to chastise people for not searching for old posts before starting a new one, but then to also chastise them when they do actually search and respond to an old post. ...

I see these as two separate issues. In my experience posters are only directed to the search function when they ask a question that has been answered numerous times before. This is a different scenario to reviving a long dead thread to answer a question that has already been answered in that thread, to ask a new question that may be vaguely related to the thread topic or simply to add "me too".

...... I know that technically "necroposting" just refers to responding to an old post and not having anything of value to say, such as "me too!" ......

Exactly

[NocturnalOcean]

A problem with communities and forums, is that if only posts with valuable information were allowed, there wouldn't be a community.

[JaySee]

I see these as two separate issues. In my experience posters are only directed to the search function when they ask a question that has been answered numerous times before. This is a different scenario to reviving a long dead thread to answer a question that has already been answered in that thread, to ask a new question that may be vaguely related to the thread topic or simply to add "me too".

I agree, a lot of the necroposts I see simply have the poster add things like "me too" or "can someone plz help me learn Japanese", so they're adding either something completely unrelated or something redundant, which can be irritating. I don't think people who make posts like this read the rules anyway, so I guess this will continue to happen unless you decide to close all threads that are older than 2 months or so.

If the necropost is actually relevant and adds something to the topic, I really don't mind them though. You can often quite easily tell whether a thread is old or not anyway; if something for example is at the top of the list with 20 replies, but wasn't there yesterday or the day before, that makes it pretty suspicious.

Another solution to the annoyances caused to some by reviving old threads, might be adding a "first post" column next to the "last post" column at the bit where all the threads are listed, so that you can immediately see how old it is (though I don't know if that would technically be possible).