Old Threads
 

I've noticed along with others that many of the Main Threads we are seeing lately are from very old postings from years ago. Curious as to why. Surely there are enough question being posted that relate to current situations to fill the page. Or am I wrong (it's happened before...but don't tell my husband).

I think it is because someone posts a reply to the thread, even though the original post was posted a while ago.

Agree!

That's why many of us, do not go to check "New Posts" when we come to the Quilting Board.

Instead, we go to "Archive" which lets us see the new threads listed in chronological order. If you post to the thread, you will get an auto-notice each time there is a new post. If you don't post, but want to follow the discussion, you can subscribe, which also gets you the auto-notice with each new post. You can unsubscribe, if you do not want to follow any longer.

And bonus ... if you have no interest at all in a specific thread, then you'll never see anything about it again, if you have not posted or subscribed.

It all works pretty nice ... and makes more efficient use of your time online!

There has been an increase in "necroing" old threads (bringing dead threads back to life) lately. In general internet netiquette necroing is frowned upon, much like typing in all caps. With our modern age, 2 years is pretty darn old. 10 year old threads are ancient! I don't know what that makes me since I've been on the internet since the beginning and even before (had email in 1978)... I guess I'm a dinosaur or living fossil? Since I still access the forums via a desktop computer and not through a cell phone there are some fine tuning issues I'm not so proficient on even though I've been posting on quilting related boards for more than 20 years now.

I admit, I rather like seeing some of the old names who no longer post for their individual reasons.

One way to non-necro is simply to start new threads for subjects you feel strongly about. Maybe linking the dead thread that inspired you inside your post. Chances are that you found the post by searching anyway,so saying something like"I found this post link but it is so old I thought I should start over" gives the rest of us the choice to revisit the old thread while recognizing the time period, and not missing that the original post date.

Bumping (basically saying nothing to keep the thread visible) is also frowned upon and hasn't been an issue here that I've noticed. If you have a problem and no one has responded, it is not bumping to say "still need help on this" but at some point you need to recognize whether or not anyone is going to be able to help.

Likewise, while you can share your current interests in multiple threads, creating (or bumping or necroing) new threads in different subforums is another frowned upon activity. We used to call this cross posting, but that is mostly used now for different social media (posting the same thing on facebook, tiktok, youtube, etc.) Think the current term is "multi posting".

It can be hard to decide the most relevant forum to get eyes on your thoughts. The moderation staff gives quite a bit of leeway but if they feel something is out of place, they can move it.

I think I can use a general "we" here -- we want an active forum where people feel comfortable and welcome posting. We come from diverse backgrounds and varying degrees of computer proficiency/history,

and where is this Archive?? I don't see it. I've recently been using New Posts myself.

2 reasons are most likely (based on my experience working on other forums):

1. Spammers bumping old topics. People start replying, then the spam post is removed but the conversation continues.

2. People doing a Google search, then signing up to respond to the post their search found even though it's an old topic.

We typically split these out to new topics to avoid confusion when they happen on our forums, but the QB forum software might not have that functionality.

On the left at the very bottom of the page in very small print.

I - mostly - do not mind seeing the old threads because it reminds of the people that used to post here,

I usually go to "New Posts" when I come to this forum. I usually skip "The Games" . I am grateful that they are labelled.

It is quite easy to pick and choose what I choose to look at.

On my ipad, I scroll to the very bottom of the page, and there is a darker band of colour, you can choose advertising, archives, contact us, etc.

QuiltingWoman44 and others .... This may sound a bit complicated, but it really is not. Just the problem of how words to explain, sometimes complicate things!! :)

Scroll to the bottom of this page. On the left is a list of links.
Second in list is "Archive". Click.
This takes you to ... "Quiltingboard Forums"
Click ... on the forum you want to check out.
For this example, Click on "Main"
This gives you a list of threads, with the most recently started one on top.
Right now this thread "Old Threads" is in the #1 position, but once a new thread is started, then it will drop to #2 and downwards as others are added.

To simplify, I keep a direct link to the "Quiltingboard Forums" on my desktop.
I can get there almost instantly when I want to check out what's new on the QB!

Hope this helps you!!

Spammers, yes but what I see a lot are brand new people here who haven't noticed the dates. When you first come to this board, you see a list of forum threads / categories / topics & when you choose a topic, it sends you to the first original post there. It's pretty easy to overlook the original post date.