Stop Bumping Threads

[Artem Tabaliuk ( Артём )]

So. If you've been active on the Forums lately, you may have noticed a recent spike in "bumped" threads. This means that a person replies to a very old/irrelevant thread, bringing it "back to life". I felt the need to post this because, I'm genuinely curious why people would do this. Another reason I posted is to raise awareness and perhaps stop people from "bumping" threads.

 

[Clock_Enthusiast]

I agree with you, but I think an equal (if not bigger issue) right now is threads which don't need to be a new thread. Everyone knows people are bumping threads and agrees it isn't good--I don't think that requires a whole thread in itself though, because that takes up an equal amount of space as a bumped thread.

 

[Garf]

Yes. Read the forum rules. Not everyone reads the terms and conditions but please do so.

 

[Puzzle Maniac]

RemindMe! 1 year reason="Bump this thread"

 

[jakemaddox]

Would it be possible to have a set amount of time between the last post and the thread automatically closing? That way necromancy would be impossible.

 

[xyzzy]

Bumps of very old threads are not inherently bad.

Quite often the bumps are for these (bad) reasons:
1. A new poster is trying to contribute to a discussion but doesn't realise that the post they're replying to is from X years ago and is no longer relevant (e.g. because someone else has already answered the question).
2. One of you jokers is trying to be funny by getting a bump world record or whatever the h*ck.

But there can also be good reasons to bump old threads:
3. New information or research has surfaced and the topics in the thread are worth revisiting.
4. The thread is a megathread that other people should have been using but were not.

(These reasons are not exhaustive; there may be other bad reasons and also other good reasons. Also, a bump may simultaneously be for a good reason and also a bad reason! Evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether bumping really makes sense.)

I would also like to remind all of you that backseat moderation is generally not a good idea. Don't complain about bad bumps in the bumped threads, because you're just adding on to the posts the moderators need to delete. (This is a call-out post. You know who you are.)

The site used to have a message warning members that the thread is 6 months old or more, but people largely ignored that warning and it apparently didn't really affect how frequently people bumped old threads. This is social commentary about literacy.