Change UD-policy of bumping 7 year old threads?

[Goliath]

There's a rule at UD a certain member just loves to remind us of whenever we start a new thread, and that's the rule that says you have to bump an old thread whenever the topic you want to talk about was already discussed on UD before.

I can see how this makes sense if the old thread was only a year, or two years, old. But I think it's a little ridiculous to bump threads from 2003. There are three reasons why I feel this way:

1. The rule was meant (I guess) to avoid getting multiple threads with the same subject-matter. But UD is so frequently visited by a lot of members, and new threads are opened almost every day, that really old threads can only be found at least twenty pages away from the front page. So say you want to discuss Disney villains, then there's no way any member sees that this new thread is a duplicate of a thread on page 36. Therefore, the rule is unneccesary.

2. Some of the people on UD have been here a very long time, even when those old threads were started. They may have changed their opinions on things and don't want people to start arguing against their 7 year old opinions.

3. A lot of people who posted in the old threads aren't here anymore, yet other people, when seeing a thread appear at the top of UD will not check whether it was a 7-year old thread and they will begin to answer to (or debate) people who aren't here anymore. This is useless, as they have to go through a lot of trouble only to never get an answer.

That's why I think this rule needs to go.

Oh, and I also think only moderators should make posts concerning rules and guidelines (and not regular members).

[blackcauldron85]

I'm not a moderator, but my 2 cents:

1. That's why there is the Search option, to find old threads. Sometimes you have to try more than once to find what you're looking for, but it usually works pretty well.

2. Then if someone bumps the thread, they have the option of saying, "Hey, that's what I felt 7 years ago, but since then, my opinion has changed".

I know for me, sometimes I don't know what thread to post in, since there are 8 different threads on the same topic. It gets confusing!

[The_Iceflash]

I'm not a moderator either but here's what I have to say:

I think there should be an archive for notable old threads.

But really, I see no reason in insisting that 7 year old threads that are dead should be the only ones that can be used for certain topics. If that's gonna be the case then at least put those threads in a resource area or something since many of those threads are very very hard to find in the search.

The way I see it is that if the thread is dead, it's dead. From my experience with other forums, this one isn't big enough to worry about a repeat thread issue or even have a strict rule about it. I certainly don't consider a new thread about the same thing a dead 7 year old topic is to be a repeat thread at all. How many are going to want to pick up a 7 year old discussion. As someone who wasn't here then, why would I look through 7 years of threads to find a dead one?

I think dead threads especially threads that old should remain dead.

[Luke]

I think there is a happy medium between the two extremes. We don't need multiple threads being started on the same topic, but at the same time, we don't need to bump a thread dormant for years rather than start a new discussion. As with anything, this will really come down to judgment calls. I do think that some of us have come to overemphasize the search for existing threads rule. It's definitely not in place to discourage the creation of new threads, but rather to prevent new members from starting a bunch of threads. I have no plans to delete existing threads anytime soon, no matter how inactive they may be, so they'll continue to be a valuable resource. But at the same time, we needn't turn to somewhat similar threads to bury news items that people would be apt to learn without checking recent posts on multi-page threads.

If this issue persists, I may consider revising the rule we have posted, but until then I'd encourage a less than fully stringent reading of it. Thanks for bringing this up.

[Goliath]

[...] we don't need to bump a thread dormant for years rather than start a new discussion.

But this happened a few days ago, when a new thread about Disney villains was merged with a thread that was started in 2003. I don't think the TS likes it much that his/her thread gets dumped into an old, 'dead' thread.

[...] I have no plans to delete existing threads anytime soon, no matter how inactive they may be, so they'll continue to be a valuable resource. [...]

Oh, but I wasn't asking for that. Please, let existing threads continue to exist. I used to be a member of another forum where old threads suddenly got deleted after a year or so. I remember being 'upset', because all my efforts were deleted with one touch on a button...

[...]If this issue persists, I may consider revising the rule we have posted, but until then I'd encourage a less than fully stringent reading of it. Thanks for bringing this up.

Ultimately, it's up to the moderators to decide whether or not old and new threads get merged. Who is a moderator, besides you? Is Albert (Escapay) one?

Thanks for answering.

[disneyboy20022]

please...don't start war with Escapay...think of the puppies and the children and the gromits with wallaces and ask yourself...what would Dr Who or Merlin do?

[The_Iceflash]

please...don't start war with Escapay...think of the puppies and the children and the gromits with wallaces and ask yourself...what would Dr Who or Merlin do?

Really though, I think threads are being merged a little too frequently and a good number of them don't even need to. There's no reason why anyone would need to pick up a discussion that ended years ago. Those old threads lose their relevance as years go by and members come and go.