There seems to be a recent increase in the number of ancient threads being replied to by new forum members who don't know better than to check the date of the last response.

Here's an example:

https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....threadid=32678


Thread resurrections like this are usually useless and waste people's time. While it's not a big deal, just wanted to make a suggestion to see if there's maybe a way to keep them from doing this for at least some probationary period or maybe at least display a warning: "This thread is a year old.. do you still want to respond?" before they bump it to the top.

 

how about locking after a year of no replies? that way, if its relevant enough to reopen, it can be done in a new thread/

 

but by doing that, it just causes the newbies to start all new threads on the same subject that has been discussed countless times. if the post they make when resurrecting a thread is relavent and offers a good contribution to that particular thread, it shows that they are using the search and not beign lazy by posting a new thread on an old topic.

 

I battle this issue on my own forums as well. As Z04 hinted at, which is worse... Having one thread with relevant discussion, even if part of teh original discussion happened a year ago...

or

Having multiple threads which cover the same topic?

When searching (when search works) for information, I'd personally rather see one thread, as opposed to to 15 threads all covering the same topic (some new, some old).

Sometimes people ask a question and a new post bumps it to the top and people start discussing teh topic and answering the question (as if it was posted yesterday). That can be a bit odd, but my feeling is that if there's enough interest to continue a year old topic, then so be it. It will eventually die (only to be resurrected once again by someone two years from now, heh).

 

Couldnt have said it any better myself..