Resurrecting old threads

[Clannad48]

As title really,having been caught out by an old thread, resurrected almost a year to the day by a new member, am I the only one who finds these resurrections odd. I understand when people want to know how a horse/pony/human is doing after a while, but I have noticed recently (half term therefore having time to spend on the forum) that some of these threads seem to be resurrected for no reason.

 

[Honey08]

Yes it's quite annoying. Often it's someone advertising.

 

[SadKen]

I think sometimes it's the result of a Google by someone looking for a situation similar to theirs. Then they post on the old thread (hence new users). I have been here a while and luckily recognise some of the old zombies that pop up sometimes!

 

[Thriller]

Ive ressurected a few. Its mostly from me goggling something and a thread about it coming on here and i automatically reply without looking at the date lol

 

[Maesfen]

^^^^^^ This, I've done it myself 'in my youth' when I was first reading through each topic. Now, I know enough to start a new thread as sometimes the advice originally is outdated but as a newbie that isn't apparent, you're just glad someone else was having the same problem!

 

[marmalade76]

^^^^^^ This, I've done it myself 'in my youth' when I was first reading through each topic. Now, I know enough to start a new thread as sometimes the advice originally is outdated but as a newbie that isn't apparent, you're just glad someone else was having the same problem!

I've done it also. But remember that sometimes new members get told to make use of the search facility when posting oft asked questions..

 

[Maesfen]

^^ Lol, yes.

Just remember that sometimes,the google search is better at finding the threads you need than the HHO search facility! ��

 

[risky business]

It is actually considered normal on some forums to actually just look up old threads and not start new ones..

If you wrote a thread and the subject had already been discussed even if it was old you was told to stop being lazy and search the forum for it!

Now that was odd.

 

[Overread]

Sometimes its a language barrier - people search and find an old thread that is sort of on the same topic and then post into it with their question that isn't quite related at all. Other times they hope that by posting to a similar, but not identical thread that those replying will then reply to their question as well.

Some are spambots which just happen to have a semi-relevant post to make; but fail in their delivery (their spam/link doesn't get added or its a long term bot that will drop its spam later and hopes that by posting semi-sane posts to random threads it will not get spotted).

Othertimes its honest accidents.


As for the whole "use search" my view is always that yes searching is good; yes it can give good answers; but searching in itself is a skill. You also sometimes have to semi-know the answer in order to put the right terms into a search engine to get the results out that will give you the full answer. And its very easy to overlook things because its "common knowledge" and thus isn't oft written, and yet critical.
Asides which forums are made for asking questions on so its healthy to start new threads and ask questions (The only ones it tends to annoy are those who want "higher level discussions" though they tend to never start threads as they don't really know what they want - they just know they don't like seeing active threads on topics they already know the answers too)

 

[Floxie]

Easy to do if you're not careful - searching the forum for a topic, you find a thread in the results, have a read and hit reply - without necessarily spotting the date on it

 

[stormox]

But I have on several occasions, started a topic, only to be reprimanded by other HHO'ers saying ' theres already a thread about that' and I haven't looked far enough back! Also you can be browsing, come across an old interesting thread and feel like posting on it- why not? other people mighnt have seen it either......

 

[soulfull]

I've done it also. But remember that sometimes new members get told to make use of the search facility when posting oft asked questions..

But I have on several occasions, started a topic, only to be reprimanded by other HHO'ers saying ' theres already a thread about that' and I haven't looked far enough back! Also you can be browsing, come across an old interesting thread and feel like posting on it- why not? other people mighnt have seen it either......

These!!!

come on guys what on earth are people supposed to do???

does it really matter