The forums have seen a spate of incidents recently where some clueless sap has dug back dozens of pages through the archives, found a thread for a game that's been abandoned for literal years, and posted some silly message like "Is this still being made?" Frankly it's annoying. Most forums have rules against necroing (in SpaceBattles, unless you're the OP of a thread, you can get banned for necroing any thread more than 4 weeks old unless you can provide a very good reason why you shouldn't be), so shouldn't we do something about it? It's untidy.
Can we do something about the necroing?
- Thread starter Jash
- Start date
I agree with this.
The fact is that its not even an accident or out of genuine concern for a game/subject.
It's a pointless action that just serves to clutter the forum, or it takes away from more relevant/pertinent information.
And like Jash said, there are forums that have banned people for necroing threads unless there was a good reason for it, I know, I've had to hand out a few bans as a mod on those forums.
I'm not calling for a blanket ban on some idiot who can't read time or dates, but I think a warning system might be helpful. We ban bots, spammers and aggressive trolls. Necroing threads isn't as serious as those, but it is certainly a problem that needs to be dealt with.
The fact is that its not even an accident or out of genuine concern for a game/subject.
It's a pointless action that just serves to clutter the forum, or it takes away from more relevant/pertinent information.
And like Jash said, there are forums that have banned people for necroing threads unless there was a good reason for it, I know, I've had to hand out a few bans as a mod on those forums.
I'm not calling for a blanket ban on some idiot who can't read time or dates, but I think a warning system might be helpful. We ban bots, spammers and aggressive trolls. Necroing threads isn't as serious as those, but it is certainly a problem that needs to be dealt with.
Imho, accidental thread necromancy is a symptom of a larger problem, which is that forum newbies don't know the forum etiquette or where to find it.
It's not entirely their fault, as not everyone will think to go to the pinned threads for guidance or have the patience to lurk.
Maybe sending an automated pm whenever someone creates an account would help ? Something like: "Welcome to the forums, here's what to do, what not to do, and where to find information about such and such. Have fun !" ?
Idk how to deal with intentional necros, though. Ignoring them seems to work just fine.
It's not entirely their fault, as not everyone will think to go to the pinned threads for guidance or have the patience to lurk.
Maybe sending an automated pm whenever someone creates an account would help ? Something like: "Welcome to the forums, here's what to do, what not to do, and where to find information about such and such. Have fun !" ?
Idk how to deal with intentional necros, though. Ignoring them seems to work just fine.
The problem then is that by ignoring intentional necro, you're giving people silent permission to continue doing it.
Another knock-on effect is that dredging up old threads, you're pushing newer threads down. Few people look beyond the first page of the list of threads, or even actually the latest thread on the forum home page. Which is especially hard on people trying to make games, seeing as this area is where we're seeing a lot of necro. There are hundreds of games in that part of the forum, some of them are completed, more are dead and some of them are still works in progress. The WIPs get knocked down the list and can easily disappear.
But the main point is that necroing doesn't add anything.
Another knock-on effect is that dredging up old threads, you're pushing newer threads down. Few people look beyond the first page of the list of threads, or even actually the latest thread on the forum home page. Which is especially hard on people trying to make games, seeing as this area is where we're seeing a lot of necro. There are hundreds of games in that part of the forum, some of them are completed, more are dead and some of them are still works in progress. The WIPs get knocked down the list and can easily disappear.
But the main point is that necroing doesn't add anything.
This sounds like a lot of bother over people doing nothing more than posting in kind of old threads? There is no reason you can't just ignore it and move on with your business.
I'd use a system that soft-closed the threads after x months. Should anyone wished to re-open them, they'd have to report them first, specifying a valid reason. Only the OP could bypass this (especially useful in game promotion and content submission threads).
There'd be threads I'd excempt from this rule if possible, such as "What's your favourite indie game?", "What are your least favourite kinks?" or "What does your Steele look like?".
There'd be threads I'd excempt from this rule if possible, such as "What's your favourite indie game?", "What are your least favourite kinks?" or "What does your Steele look like?".
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It's slightly annoying, but it isn't really an issue unless they are entirely off topic for the thread. I think the bigger issue is them posting a new thread with that kind of question.
There really needs to be something done about it tbh.
You can't exactly "accidentally" necro something, these people are straight up going back oogles of forum pages looking for these threads that are obviously long dead by that point and posting in them, not paying a lick of attention to the last comment's date which is NOT HARD TO MISS IF YOU PAY ATTENTION.
I'm in another forum that has a rule to not necro threads that are over a month old in inactivity for the most part unless you're the OP and have a VERY good reason to (As the forum in question is rather active) unless it's very specific boards like RP and Creative ones where the limit doesn't apply. And if they do pass that limit, just make a new thread of the same topic so that necroing is avoided (Regardless of how repetitive it is). And I have seen new people do this shit all the time, it ends up with them getting locked right after and the admin of the board having to tell these people to not necro threads that are past the date in terms of the last bit of activity on it and to check for the notice stating to not necro WHICH IS RIGHT AT THE TOP OF THE THREADS IN QUESTION before posting. This happens more than it needs to. Yet they don't do that.
It may not seem like that big a deal, but it's annoying, and alongside all the things Evil has mentioned, there are things ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE BOARDS or at least the first few that are seen active that can be bumped without issue, rather than some thing made in 2015 or something that hasn't been touched in a fucking year. Goodness people CHECK the last comment's date time it was made before you go being all "Uhhh is this still being made?" when it clearly ain't with how dead it has been. It doesn't take but a second to check before posting. >.<
You can't exactly "accidentally" necro something, these people are straight up going back oogles of forum pages looking for these threads that are obviously long dead by that point and posting in them, not paying a lick of attention to the last comment's date which is NOT HARD TO MISS IF YOU PAY ATTENTION.
I'm in another forum that has a rule to not necro threads that are over a month old in inactivity for the most part unless you're the OP and have a VERY good reason to (As the forum in question is rather active) unless it's very specific boards like RP and Creative ones where the limit doesn't apply. And if they do pass that limit, just make a new thread of the same topic so that necroing is avoided (Regardless of how repetitive it is). And I have seen new people do this shit all the time, it ends up with them getting locked right after and the admin of the board having to tell these people to not necro threads that are past the date in terms of the last bit of activity on it and to check for the notice stating to not necro WHICH IS RIGHT AT THE TOP OF THE THREADS IN QUESTION before posting. This happens more than it needs to. Yet they don't do that.
It may not seem like that big a deal, but it's annoying, and alongside all the things Evil has mentioned, there are things ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE BOARDS or at least the first few that are seen active that can be bumped without issue, rather than some thing made in 2015 or something that hasn't been touched in a fucking year. Goodness people CHECK the last comment's date time it was made before you go being all "Uhhh is this still being made?" when it clearly ain't with how dead it has been. It doesn't take but a second to check before posting. >.<
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I've never understood exactly why it annoys people so much but most of my forum experiences have been with places where it either wasn't an issue or no one cared.
I know it can feel especially offputting for new posters to catch flak for not using the search function if they make a new topic and also get told off if they do search and try to post in an older one.
I know it can feel especially offputting for new posters to catch flak for not using the search function if they make a new topic and also get told off if they do search and try to post in an older one.
It's called common sense and not being a lazy fuck, USE YOUR BRAIN and EYES to actually read instead of just blindly posting without reading. Major pet peeve of mine from when I was a forum mod and admin is people who are new necroing obviously dead threads or posting multiple new threads when all they had to do was use the search function or even read a bit to discover something. What Peeves me even more is when a new forum user neglects completely to read the fucking FAQ and RULES. If you're getting warnings due to your posting due to your laziness and stupidity you deserve it since you couldn't take the time to read the faq and rules.
That seems needlessly hostile to newcomers to me. You can't expect people to instantly glean the taboos of a new place and jumping on them for it will drive them away.
Though perhaps that's the point. It's usually the smaller insular communities that harshly police everything rather than the larger ones.
Though perhaps that's the point. It's usually the smaller insular communities that harshly police everything rather than the larger ones.
If I could elaborate a bit on why necroing gets me down- when I see a long-dead game thread suddenly pop back up on the front page of its subforum for the first time in literal years, my first thought is "Oh, has the developer finally come back to resume work on that project?" So I go and look and no, it's some ninny digging back 20 pages through the forum to ask "Hey, when's the next update coming?" They're going out of their way to do something stupid that 5 seconds of decent thinking would tell them is pointless, and the only thing they accomplish is to clutter the pages and annoy people.
Necroing is rude and annoying everywhere. The only difference is how strict or lax a community is in dealing with it. And I think we're FAR too lax, in that we don't do anything about it at all. So don't try and get passive-aggressive "Maybe YOU'RE the ones with the problem" with us, mate.
Automatic tracking of this is tricky. You pretty much need moderator oversight to tell the difference between frivolous necroing and legitimate ones. Though they do tend to follow a pattern.
Asking if there's been an update is bad. Posting news about an update is good.
Answering an ancient question about the game is bad. Asking your own question is good. (Ex: How do you get past the bridge?)
Memeing and other low effort posts about the game is bad. Starting a deep discussion or doing a large analysis of the game is good.
Posting an entirely new thread to do the good things is usually undesirable as well, since that leaves a whole bunch of disparaging threads about the same topic which can clutter up the forum as well. Generally you don't want that any more than you want the necroing. Both cause problems. The only solution is more moderator work time.
Asking if there's been an update is bad. Posting news about an update is good.
Answering an ancient question about the game is bad. Asking your own question is good. (Ex: How do you get past the bridge?)
Memeing and other low effort posts about the game is bad. Starting a deep discussion or doing a large analysis of the game is good.
Posting an entirely new thread to do the good things is usually undesirable as well, since that leaves a whole bunch of disparaging threads about the same topic which can clutter up the forum as well. Generally you don't want that any more than you want the necroing. Both cause problems. The only solution is more moderator work time.
What I was actually getting at is that smaller communities are probably more anal about strictly policing things like that as a low-key way to drive off new posters.
Exhibit A: https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/nameless-adult-ue4-project-pics-and-demo-inside.12203/#post-301413
A guy once made a single post with a couple of screenshots about a game he was prototyping with the intention of making it into something, not even reaching the stage of giving the hypothetical project a name yet. Nobody else posts in the thread, he never posts another thing, the link goes dead, and the project is very obvious abandoned.
Fast-forward more than 20 months and this muffin digs the thread up from the recesses of the forum for the sole purpose of saying "This looks really good! The link dead though
" And this is their first and ONLY post on the forum since joining.
Why the hell do we allow this nonsense?
A guy once made a single post with a couple of screenshots about a game he was prototyping with the intention of making it into something, not even reaching the stage of giving the hypothetical project a name yet. Nobody else posts in the thread, he never posts another thing, the link goes dead, and the project is very obvious abandoned.
Fast-forward more than 20 months and this muffin digs the thread up from the recesses of the forum for the sole purpose of saying "This looks really good! The link dead though
" And this is their first and ONLY post on the forum since joining.Why the hell do we allow this nonsense?
some forums have a system in place where new users are confined to a limited view of the forums. This helps with separating users from bots, lurkers or otherwise unintelligent posters from the general user base, also allows the staff to know who to let in and not to let in. Course a lot of these types of things have a auto-feature that let you move to the full forum after x amount of time or posts. During this time the new users could familiarize themselves with the rules and stuff.
A
Athena
Guest
I'm neither here nor there when it comes to necroing. Ethereal Dragon's suggestion sounds like a good idea, provided the Bug Report section of one of the ones that people can access freely. Don't wanna make the people who are trying to help feel frustrated or unwelcome.
I don't see why ppl are treating necroing like it's a big huge thing.
In my opinion it's not nearly as bad as flaming or spam... just to put things in perspective.
In my opinion it's not nearly as bad as flaming or spam... just to put things in perspective.