Why not necro?

bulbousb16_ESO

I'm curious as to WHY the forum rules require the creation of new threads on a subject if old threads exist but are more than a few months old. Certainly, necro-ing (the posting of new content to old dormant threads) can be used to trick people, but on the whole it seems to be a better approach to re-raising a subject than starting a new thread.

If you just start a new thread, you're duplicating content, and missing out on all the previous discussion, that could instead be cataloged for people to see and refer to. It'd be like writing a book on a subject from scratch every time a new version is warranted.

I must be missing something; anyone know the rationale? Also, if you really want people NOT to necro old threads, why don't they auto-lock?

Voxicity

Because what they're originally talking about could be completely outdated and would cause confusion between people, especially those not checking the dates

paulsimonps

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Because what they're originally talking about could be completely outdated and would cause confusion between people, especially those not checking the dates

This^ Especially when it is in regards to class balance and skills, gear, content. So many things could be out of date. Better to redo the thread on your own and see what people think now. Its like go back to the start of craglorn and see what peoples builds were then, if you would go in to one right now and be all like "that is so wrong you noobs" then you would look like a complete fool and an A hole. Better to not have the confusion happen in the first place. And yea my example might have been extreme but I have seen similar things happen before.

BRogueNZ

depends on what the subject is. there are issues that have been around for weeks-months-years

of course people will damn you for not using the search function and damn you if you do

TheStealthDude

I thought this was going to be a discussion about a potential necromancer class.

Not sure if relieved or disappointed.

seaef

TheStealthDude wrote: »

I thought this was going to be a discussion about a potential necromancer class.

Not sure if relieved or disappointed.

How dare you necro a thread 39 minutes old.

bulbousb16_ESO

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Because what they're originally talking about could be completely outdated and would cause confusion between people, especially those not checking the dates

This is possible... but probably more the exception than the rule. Not a good enough reason to completely outlaw the practice. It's better to have old information available than to re-hash old discussion over and over.

Still, why condemn the practice but actually allow people to do it?

WalksonGraves

bulbousb16_ESO wrote: »

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Because what they're originally talking about could be completely outdated and would cause confusion between people, especially those not checking the dates

This is possible... but probably more the exception than the rule. Not a good enough reason to completely outlaw the practice. It's better to have old information available than to re-hash old discussion over and over.

Still, why condemn the practice but actually allow people to do it?

Because people argue enough without old info that is no longer relevant.

IronCrystal

Almost every forums has this rule. If a thread is outdated its usually not relevant anymore, otherwise people would be continuing to make threads/post in that thread. If it has gone months without posts then people stopped caring about the thread.

QuebraRegra

because no one ever thought that there would still be launch bugs that would make a necro thread entirely legit... and the ZOS embarrassment that comes with such.

Nestor

While a few threads are worthy of being necro'd, they are more general ones, like what is your age, what class do you play or something like that. Anything specific to the game is out of date probably 3 to 4 months after the thread was posted. Either from Patch changes, bug fixes, balance changes, gear changes heck just about anything. I have talked several people who have come back to the game and had been away year or more, some even closer to release week that flat out do not recognize the game as it used to be.

Rickter

I think if ZOS wants to prohibit necro'ing threads, they need to wipe all threads past a certain amount of pages. its not more work - its a script. they can just run a script on the forums. keeping threads around, then slapping a user with a reprimand when they "necro" it is absurd. just auto-wipe the threads for us and that way, nothing is considered a necro thread!

ADarklore

This is why ZOS will typically LOCK a necro'd thread- because it is against forum rules.

Whenever I do a search, I always use Google and adjust the time-frame of the results to only display the previous six months- and even then many times the information is out of date so I have to readjust it to only three or four months out- especially if there had been a major update during the time. I then select the listings that correspond to this official forum.

bulbousb16_ESO

ADarklore wrote: »

This is why ZOS will typically LOCK a necro'd thread- because it is against forum rules.

So, why not automatically lock old threads so they can't be necro'ed? It makes no sense to allow it to be done and then react to it. I'll go ahead and assume that this is due to technical reasons.

But the suggestion that all old threads are no longer relevant is ridiculous. While it can happen, this is probably true of only a very small percentage of actual threads, for which game updates have made the thread content obsolete. Many threads are theoretical or of a question/answer style. Do we really need to keep creating new threads to have the same discussions over and over? Do we really want people NOT to use the search function and just create new threads when they have the same old questions? When you encounter an unfixed bug, do you really need people to test and validate that, yes, it's still a bug and no, it's still not fixed?

Amayna

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Because what they're originally talking about could be completely outdated and would cause confusion between people, especially those not checking the dates

Exactly this, also it would be helpful if after X amount of time the threads would auto lock to read only!

starkerealm

bulbousb16_ESO wrote: »

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Because what they're originally talking about could be completely outdated and would cause confusion between people, especially those not checking the dates

This is possible... but probably more the exception than the rule. Not a good enough reason to completely outlaw the practice. It's better to have old information available than to re-hash old discussion over and over.

Still, why condemn the practice but actually allow people to do it?

I've been attacked by posters over information that was accurate a year (or more) earlier when I originally posted it. I particularly remember an incident where someone went ballistic in a werewolf thread, because I was talking about how the stamina regen buff was active at all times (which was changed several patches later).

SydneyGrey

And you can't win, no matter what you do.
If you necro a thread, you get yelled at for necroing a thread.
If you create a new thread, a million people will immediately jump on to tell you "We already have a thread like this! Use the freaking search function, loser!"
So basically no matter what you do, you're treated like garbage by certain people.

BenLocoDete

SydneyGrey wrote: »

And you can't win, no matter what you do.
If you necro a thread, you get yelled at for necroing a thread.
If you create a new thread, a million people will immediately jump on to tell you "We already have a thread like this! Use the freaking search function, loser!"
So basically no matter what you do, you're treated like garbage by certain people.

Exactly my thoughts as well.

Anyway a few suggestions also comes to mind:

1. an auto-lock system upon a certain amount of time without any activity,
2. if auto-lock is not viable, have a feature allowing other users to redirect someone's thread to an (semi)identical one; have the forum automatically ask if OP wishes to "merge"(threads) or in what way this new one is different than the previous that was suggested.

Edit: By the way, I was dragged into this thread wondering if it was about Why not necromancers which is to this day a question I have... necromancers are an issue in every TES game, where did they get this "warden", don't know a single book mentioning the existance of such group?

SydneyGrey

BenLocoDete wrote: »

Edit: By the way, I was dragged into this thread wondering if it was about Why not necromancers which is to this day a question I have... necromancers are an issue in every TES game, where did they get this "warden", don't know a single book mentioning the existance of such group?

LOl! That's what I thought the thread would be about, too.

starkerealm

BenLocoDete wrote: »

...where did they get this "warden", don't know a single book mentioning the existance of such group?

Yeah, it's Wyrd. We've never had any nature mages in an Elder Scrolls game before.

Duiwel

bulbousb16_ESO

So, not a single reason to date why old threads shouldn't be revived instead of starting new ones.

I ran into an issue recently where there were over a dozen threads on the same topic (getting frozen when being arrested by a guard). Should we REALLY all be starting new threads on the same topic? Is it really a BAD idea to centralize the discussion in a single place? Should we automatically rehash old discussion every time a new person discovers the same old bug?

KochDerDamonen

+ long threads aren't necessarily productive, what pages does one have to read to be up-to-date on the conversation, does the OP have to update their post constantly to make it clear?

bulbousb16_ESO

KochDerDamonen wrote: »

+ long threads aren't necessarily productive, what pages does one have to read to be up-to-date on the conversation, does the OP have to update their post constantly to make it clear?

Is re-hashing the same discussion more productive? If someone reads a new thread that doesn't have all the information, is that more productive?

TheShadowScout

Its their forums, they make the house rules.
If we don't like them, we can follow them under protest and beg for a change in policy, or we can leave, or we can break them repeatedly and get banned.

Me, I try to follow the rules even when I consider them silly, and find ways to work around them .

Like for example...

bulbousb16_ESO wrote: »

If you just start a new thread, you're duplicating content, and missing out on all the previous discussion, that could instead be cataloged for people to see and refer to...

...start the new thread, and link to the old if the necro-ed discussion gets closed for necro.

And it should be mentioned that in some cases, they do leave old threads active, when the discussion is still meaningful and ongoing. But it is true that there are way too many old and forgotten topics that are all over and done with... or rendered obsolete by changed in the game since.

KochDerDamonen

bulbousb16_ESO wrote: »

KochDerDamonen wrote: »

+ long threads aren't necessarily productive, what pages does one have to read to be up-to-date on the conversation, does the OP have to update their post constantly to make it clear?

Is re-hashing the same discussion more productive? If someone reads a new thread that doesn't have all the information, is that more productive?

It absolutely can be productive to rehash a discussion. A new poster could make their point more eloquently, with more detail, or images, or take newer information into account and even link back to the older posts that they find are still relevant without the expectation that readers of their thread will have to have read through the entirety of another.

The second point doesn't really make sense to me, why does the newer thread lack information? If it's because x many people say something happened or when or why they think, those are all things that could be referenced in shorthand on a new post on the topic without the baggage of the rest of the older thread.

bulbousb16_ESO

KochDerDamonen wrote: »

The second point doesn't really make sense to me, why does the newer thread lack information? If it's because x many people say something happened or when or why they think, those are all things that could be referenced in shorthand on a new post on the topic without the baggage of the rest of the older thread.

Let's assume that this is a bug. And it is a bug that has been around for a long time.

Is it really more productive for ANYONE to have multiple threads on the same subject? If the subject is dormant because the bug has not been fixed, is it productive to have people start new threads?

Seriously, I can't understand anyone suggesting that multiple (10+?) threads on the same subject is productive for anyone, not the users nor the developers.

phaneub17_ESO

They need to collect data on our postings, if you bump old threads it doesn't have quite the same context when old info is being mixed in with new.

Volrion

Nestor wrote: »

While a few threads are worthy of being necro'd, they are more general ones, like what is your age, what class do you play or something like that. Anything specific to the game is out of date probably 3 to 4 months after the thread was posted. Either from Patch changes, bug fixes, balance changes, gear changes heck just about anything. I have talked several people who have come back to the game and had been away year or more, some even closer to release week that flat out do not recognize the game as it used to be.

I had an Asian server thread with 10k views get closed yesterday for "necroing".

It's been an issue since launch, and for those of us suffering with *** PVP gameplay from Asian countries, it's an issue today.

They just do what's convenient for their narrative.

KochDerDamonen

bulbousb16_ESO wrote: »

KochDerDamonen wrote: »

The second point doesn't really make sense to me, why does the newer thread lack information? If it's because x many people say something happened or when or why they think, those are all things that could be referenced in shorthand on a new post on the topic without the baggage of the rest of the older thread.

Let's assume that this is a bug. And it is a bug that has been around for a long time.

Is it really more productive for ANYONE to have multiple threads on the same subject? If the subject is dormant because the bug has not been fixed, is it productive to have people start new threads?

Seriously, I can't understand anyone suggesting that multiple (10+?) threads on the same subject is productive for anyone, not the users nor the developers.

Don't take me the wrong way when I say this. Another reason I, or anyone else, could say that it's worth ditching the old threads for new ones isss....

Half or more of the posts (in number, and content of each individual post) is going to be "rah rah ZOS sux I can't believe blah blah blah..." in a thread about some sort of problem. Almost none of them write out their problem in a concise way, even less go on to describe what they were doing and where (or even anything that might be relevant like their character's level/class/whatever, PC specs or which console system...).

Remember, you present threads specifically about bugs as your example of a time it would be good to necro. I say that it is not. Bug reports from prior patches are not necessarily irrelevant, but they do not have the same perspective as people responding on the current patch. All outdated information is just filler to trudge through and generally unhelpful. Any information that would remain relevant between patches can be placed into a current thread without need to sticking it to all of the old posts.

I think posts that go 3 months(roughly a patch cycle) without a response should be locked...

Galwylin

Here's the fun part. If someone new asks a question, they're told to search the forum for old posts if people are tired of the subject. If they comment on one, then they've necroed a thread. I really think at the least they should lock them at a certain period of time if they want to keep it available but unable to comment on.