The thing about necromancers...

[Arseface]

The thing about necromancers...

In the interest of being seen as helpful, and not just argumentative or Australian, I've decided to create a thread (which could hopefully be stickied, provided I haven't ballsed it up and there's a duplicate somewhere or it's unnecessary) that displays what I (through the wisdom of Stranger) believe should become the new custom for people who resurrect dead threads.

As we all should know, because we all regularly read the forum rules, the official threshold for a thread to be considered old is four months.

• Please do not post in a thread that is older than 4 months unless a stuck thread, you can create a new thread instead.

Now, Stranger brought it to the attention of myself and others that it is more productive for everyone involved if, when a user notices that someone else has transgressed this rule, they not post in that thread. Instead, report it and move on. The mods will find it, sort it out, and everyone wins. Posting in the thread just makes you look like an attention seeker (well intentioned or not) and only contributes to the problem.

Now this may seem hypocritical, as I have generally always done what I've just told people to not do. But you may notice that I have stopped that recently, after Stranger started his eloquently titled Report it to the Staff or Shut Up campaign.

In the interests of a smoothly run forum, with less fights about necromantic threads, and most importantly, to keep Stranger happy, please start doing this.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

you know, this made me realize i haven't read the rules in a long time. it may be over a year now.

i'm gonna go ahead and read them again just so the next time they are brought into question, i'm not quoting an outdated edition.

so, thanks for that arse... i'm going to go read the rules now because of you :lol:

EDIT:
wow! i had no idea that the best way to become staff was to pm steve in all caps!

The best way to become staff is to pm a current staff member and ask straight away. We will completely base our answer on how much the caps lock is used in your request, the number of oddly capitalized letters and numbers in your name, and whether we think you are a pretty cool guy. If I don't reply within 5 minutes of recieving said private message, that means you did not use enough caps lock. You should send me another using moar caps lock. There is also the possibility that I did not reply because you are not a pretty cool guy, in which case you should gtfo my forums before i pull out my danger fists.

Signed:
Steve the Magnificent

 

[Gikoku]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

It's sad how many members never bother to read the rules. Should make it where the first place they're automatically taken to after registration is the Forum Rules & Guidelines thread, if possible.

 

[droded]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

Actually, on some forums I've been to each member gets an automated PM straight away from one of the Admins on the site telling them to read the rules. (Along with a link)

Good idea?

 

[Arld]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

It's sad how many members never bother to read the rules. Should make it where the first place they're automatically taken to after registration is the Forum Rules & Guidelines thread, if possible.

There is the possibility to implement a feature which redirects users of XX posts (or registration date, usergroupid, userid, etc.) to thread YY.

Actually, on some forums I've been to each member gets an automated PM straight away from one of the Admins on the site telling them to read the rules. (Along with a link)

Good idea?

Not the best idea, imo, but it should be done at the very least. It increases the amount of people reading the rules. Even perhaps a low percentage, but at least increasing.

 

[droded]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

What I meant by the above, is as soon as a person joins the forum they will already have a PM in their inbox stating exactly what they should and shouldn't do.

Not sure if I explained it correctly.

 

[Arld]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

It's a good idea yes, but not the best still. Why? Because there are people, shamefully enough, who simply won't read the lap of text once they realize the PM are the rules. Believe it or not, those type of people are around everywhere.

Either way, both ideas seem pretty sufficient, in a way.

 

[Arseface]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

Believe it or not, I'm one of those people.

But I'll generally read the rules if I decide to stick around on the forum.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

ok, in all seriousness. how about when someone violates the rules in some way, we (doesn't matter who) just link them to the rules and include a quote of where they were violated. if it's someone who's just come here through google and will likely never return, then it does no harm. in fact, the next person who finds that thread through google may see the link and not necro it.

on the other hand, if it's a potential return visitor or someone who's relatively new, they will be aware of the rule in no uncertain terms and (hopefully) read the rules when they realize they are in danger of violating them if they don't take the 4 minutes to read them.

obviously, don't do it if someone beat you do it... or if you think it's wasted effort... but i think it' a decent idea to the point of being something i will try to do from now on.

 

[Arld]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

ok, in all seriousness. how about when someone violates the rules in some way, we (doesn't matter who) just link them to the rules and include a quote of where they were violated. if it's someone who's just come here through google and will likely never return, then it does no harm. in fact, the next person who finds that thread through google may see the link and not necro it.

That's a good idea, yes. I'm not sure how things are being done around here, but over at FileFront, we basically make user-notes (it's a vBulletin function) of each violation a member has made, and hold ourselves to a certain threshold if it comes to punishing / moderating -- a three-strike one. Basically, if a member let's say, violates the rules by necroing, we send them a PM (including read receipt check) and informing them of the matter. The thread will be closed after doing so, as it has served its purpose back in the older days.

If such a violation has been repeated, we will send another PM and ask the user to stop again. If the warnings are ignored, a temporary ban may be in it's place (either individual forum-based ban (use of access masks) or a global one). Same goes for signatures, for instance; if there's a violation, we ask the user to adjust his signature accordingly. The second time, we remove it ourselves, and third time as well, along with a signature right revocation request.

But, as I said, I don't know how things are done around here, so they might be doing this already.

However, I'd like to note that I do disagree with you if it comes to publicly telling others to follow the rules. Moderators and general staff are there for a purpose. "Back-seat moderation", as I'd call it, would be kind of silly. If all other regulars would start "back-seat moderating", there'd be little use of usual moderators (not in a literal sense, but you get the idea).

 

[queenofdisco]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

you know, this made me realize i haven't read the rules in a long time.

I've never read the rules of this site. But I just went with the general stuff you see on other sites.

But at the thread, no necro-ing dead threads, what about constructive posts which revive the conversation rather that the 'thread' per se, imo creating a new thread of something thats been done before just reverts me to think

'Search bar, we have it'

I don't really know the mindset for this forum when it comes to rules so much, but in the paradox of 'no necroing nub VS search u noob'

To which should I lean towards? New thread, or constructive post to a year old thread which wasn't a one sentence thread but rather a well thought out one with a good few paragraphs... and several pages of conversation and civil debate, etc.

Hmm?

 

[droded]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

I think that if you're enquiring about a certain topic, then using the search bar to find old threads is the thing to do.

However, if the old threads did not answer specific questions one might have then creating a new thread is the right thing to do.

 

[Arld]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

Forget about preventing it, because that's not going to happen. What can happen is staff can make sure it isn't bumped again.

Well said, exactly my point. Preventing people from doing things can't be done, pretty much the case. Better off to close the thread, seeing how some people here have the tendency to reply after a necro, tenfold (e.g. "Why did you necro? Why this? Why that?").

 

[Angel]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

the longer people carry on posting "waaaaah! you necro'd! I'm telling!" without actually telling anyone, the more redundant a previously very helpful thread becomes. And then we have to lock it. Which in turn looks damn ugly and unprofessional.

You basically wind up with a ton of new people wanting to ask question but being terrified thanks to people going mental at them for doing one thing pretty much everyone has done at least once in their forum lives.

Let 'em post, leave them to it and we'll mop up if and when it's necessary. Alternatively, try posting a link to a more recent thread/one with the answer rather than bashing them with the rule book.

It's not rocket science. Which is good, because I've never really had much of a head for heights.

 

[HobbeBrain]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

If it bothers everyone so much, why not just get the staff to lock a thread if no one posts in after four months?

That'd probably be boring to the Staff, so I'm going to be a suck up here and agree with Angel :3 and just say something more along the lines of "You just necro posted, no harm done just try not to do that it in the future" rather than "OMG U R NECROING IMA REPORT U OMG".

 

[Arld]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

If it bothers everyone so much, why not just get the staff to lock a thread if no one posts in after four months?

That'd probably be boring to the Staff

How would it be boring if there is a way to auto-lock it after XX months?

 

[HobbeBrain]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

Even of there was, it'd be all well and good, but to the outside viewer it'd look, as Angel said, damn ugly and unproffesional. And you realise that means, EVERY SINGLE old thread there's ever been is locked, looking a tad intimidating to a guest considering joining?

 

[Arld]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

I didn't say we should do it. I merely counter-argued your statement about it being boring, as I didn't think it made any sense. But yes, it will be quite intimidating for the guests, but also regulars. I am against auto-locking personally.

 

[Arseface]

Re: The thing about necromancers...

ok, in all seriousness. how about when someone violates the rules in some way, we (doesn't matter who) just link them to the rules and include a quote of where they were violated. if it's someone who's just come here through google and will likely never return, then it does no harm. in fact, the next person who finds that thread through google may see the link and not necro it.

on the other hand, if it's a potential return visitor or someone who's relatively new, they will be aware of the rule in no uncertain terms and (hopefully) read the rules when they realize they are in danger of violating them if they don't take the 4 minutes to read them.

obviously, don't do it if someone beat you do it... or if you think it's wasted effort... but i think it' a decent idea to the point of being something i will try to do from now on.

The primary reason that people necro threads in the first place (and particularly threads that have already been necroed), is because they read the first post, scroll down, and do a quick reply without reading anything else. Posting in the thread doesn't help them, and it only bumps it again, which is annoying to everyone who uses the new posts function. Send them a friendly PM or VM, and they may just notice the icon in the corner of their screen, and read it.

I've never read the rules of this site. But I just went with the general stuff you see on other sites.

But at the thread, no necro-ing dead threads, what about constructive posts which revive the conversation rather that the 'thread' per se, imo creating a new thread of something thats been done before just reverts me to think

'Search bar, we have it'

I don't really know the mindset for this forum when it comes to rules so much, but in the paradox of 'no necroing nub VS search u noob'

To which should I lean towards? New thread, or constructive post to a year old thread which wasn't a one sentence thread but rather a well thought out one with a good few paragraphs... and several pages of conversation and civil debate, etc.

Hmm?

It doesn't have to be a choice between necroing, or searching. Should a new member need information, the steps should be:

1. Search for it. If you find the information in an old thread, then you win, and you don't have to post.

2. If you didn't find it, providing you looked reasonably thoroughly, then you can make a new thread about it.