Necro Posting cutoff

[Nihilistiskism]

Necro-posting policies are stupid and unwelcome additions to what are supposed to be friendly group interactions. The definitions are arbitrary, the enforcement never leaves people feeling good.

They do not belong.

So what if someone bumps a thread a year old to ask a question about whether "X" is still true, or to re-open a discussion? New blood = new ideas? Why is it preferable to have a person start a completely new thread about  a topic when an old thread is just as good, but goes one better in that you can readily see what people responded the last time it came up?

Anti-necro posting rules have always rubbed me the wrong way, and usually indicate a forum where mods are more interested in expressing mod-like powers than in helping the community function efficiently.

-nihil

[Shad0w]

So far it looks like the over all opinion is against it but I will wait until Sunday night and see where things stand. One of the biggest reasons I have seen this used was time and time again you will get people post to a thread with nothing more than BUMP to push something back into the new response status.

[theduke850]

It does seem like most are against an anti-necroposting policy... or just view it as unnecessary. Perhaps you can do away with it but add in the forum rules a request that members not post in threads that have been inactive for more than a month (or however long) if they are not adding anything new to the topic to specifically discourage bumping.

[Nihilistiskism]

So far it looks like the over all opinion is against it but I will wait until Sunday night and see where things stand. One of the biggest reasons I have seen this used was time and time again you will get people post to a thread with nothing more than BUMP to push something back into the new response status.

Then I think that should be the rule. Specify exactly what kind of behavior isn't allowed, rather than just creating an umbrella against posting in older threads. I don't have anything against specific "don't be a dink" rules, but large umbrella policies usually create more animosity than friendship, and more problems than solutions, in my experience and opinion.

-nihil

[Scarob]

Ideally what we need is an option for those that have created an account for he mage wars website to be able to mark the threads that they have no interest in any more - the downside to this is that it requires ALOT of effort on the web programmers side

Besides if you use the already existing My Topics tab then i shouldn't matter who has posted in old threads as the topics that you have posted in are your only updates Oo

Personally im against bumping a thread just to get it to the top of the list, but not to lock old threads

How about a tick box option that allows users to select whether they want their post to be removed after X amount of time? if it is not selected then the post stays up

or maybe an update to users that ask whether they still want a message to stay up or wouldn't mind them being removed?

[Nihilistiskism]

Ideally what we need is an option for those that have created an account for he mage wars website to be able to mark the threads that they have no interest in any more - the downside to this is that it requires ALOT of effort on the web programmers side

Besides if you use the already existing My Topics tab then i shouldn't matter who has posted in old threads as the topics that you have posted in are your only updates Oo

Personally im against bumping a thread just to get it to the top of the list, but not to lock old threads

How about a tick box option that allows users to select whether they want their post to be removed after X amount of time? if it is not selected then the post stays up

or maybe an update to users that ask whether they still want a message to stay up or wouldn't mind them being removed?

An even better solution below:

How about this?

If you want to read a thread...if you care about a thread, then read it. If you don't, then don't. If a thread gets updated and you want to see what was said, you read it. If you don't care, then you don't. It's really, really simple. I'm all for moderation when it prevents rude/obnoxious/unruly behavior, or if it helps the forum function somehow (i.e. the "don't post for the express purpose of bumping...you have to say something" rule), but rules that exist exclusively to limit content or options are just frustrations for the average user. Why does it by default have to fall to a user to censor him/herself for the benefit of others, when it is actually much easier/simpler for the "others" to ignore something?

-nihil

[Shad0w]

I will lets this go for now and see what happens since it looks like this is what the community wants. Thank you all for responding.