Zombie Threads

[TBoneTX 45,542]

Responses to zombie threads are appearing rather often.

Is there a mechanism available to warn someone who is about to respond to a zombie thread? I dimly remember seeing something like that on some other board.

[LeftCoastLady 441]

Responses to zombie threads are appearing rather often.

Is there a mechanism available to warn someone who is about to respond to a zombie thread? I dimly remember seeing something like that on some other board.

I made a suggestion earlier to have threads over a specified time period closed to new posts (e.g. over a year old, close it), but that was shot down in favor of having the thread reported through the admin function to be closed. They're popping up because of the search algorithm, something must be off to have the older results coming up first before the more recent ones.

[rade2rising 205]

zombies are cool

[beejay 123]

I made a suggestion earlier to have threads over a specified time period closed to new posts (e.g. over a year old, close it), but that was shot down in favor of having the thread reported through the admin function to be closed. They're popping up because of the search algorithm, something must be off to have the older results coming up first before the more recent ones.

I agree that if the search feature posted newer results before older ones it may cut down on some of the thread resurrections. I don't necessarily agree with automatically closing old threads as sometimes OPs come back much later to leave updates on whatever they posted about. But we do seem to be approaching pandemic status with these zombies and something must be done!

[TBoneTX 45,542]

I made a suggestion earlier to have threads over a specified time period closed to new posts (e.g. over a year old, close it), but that was shot down in favor of having the thread reported through the admin function to be closed. They're popping up because of the search algorithm, something must be off to have the older results coming up first before the more recent ones.

Si, man. On that other board that I dimly remember, there was some notice at the beginning of the "reply" function that said (broadly paraphrasing here), "Do you realize that you're about to respond to a stale thread? Is this what you want to do?"

Edited to add: The VERY next message that I looked at in this forum was this:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/20192-touched/page__st__15__p__5857832#entry5857832

Mega-zombie, zzz man, and reported for closure.

Edited December 6, 2012 by TBoneTX

[Penguin_ie 5,994]

I agree there have been more zombies recently... do you guys think it is the customised google search? I never use that so not sure if it has changed.

[beejay 123]

I agree there have been more zombies recently... do you guys think it is the customised google search? I never use that so not sure if it has changed.

When I've searched for things I have gotten a mix of old and new all on the first page. I've learned to check dates as even the first result can be a few years old. I don't know if that is the main problem but I think it probably is contributing to the rise of the zombies.

[N-o-l-a 7,168]

When I've searched for things I have gotten a mix of old and new all on the first page. I've learned to check dates as even the first result can be a few years old. I don't know if that is the main problem but I think it probably is contributing to the rise of the zombies.

I think it might be. Every time I do a search, I get threads from 2010 and older coming up first.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I agree that it's the customised Google search. The advanced search always allows you to sort by date, so it's easy to see what you're replying to.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

We've asked Captain Ewok to investigate. Hopefully he will be able to re-adjust the settings to have the most recent threads appear first rather than zombie threads

[DaveE 178]

Dammit I read the title and thought we were going to have a Walking Dead discussion.

[Darnell 8,478]

IMO, it'll require a small but custom code mod to go in.

It's not a setting of the software, portal, IIRC.

[rade2rising 205]

IMO, it'll require a small but custom code mod to go in.

It's not a setting of the software, portal, IIRC.

you are replying to a zombie thread now

[Penguin_ie 5,994]

Less than three weeks since OP is hardly a zombie thread.

[TiklingGuy 211]

Just curious but why is it a big deal to not post in a thread that is a year or more old? Especially if it is a thread that did not belong in the upper forums.