Bumping of Old Threads

[AZ Rail Rat]

Log me in to agree with those who DISAGREE with the stated "bump" policy. By the time I joined some two years ago last month, this forum was going strong. Not sure what the post count was then, I think somewhere pushing 100K, and now it is pushing if not exceeding 200K. Sorry gang, I just did not have time to read through ALL those posts.

I relied on just reading new posts and was very glad when some old subjects got brought up. Sorry, but I don't see how starting a new thread on an old subject can transfer the knowledge from that old thread.

My sympathies to those (moderators) who have to organize what sometimes seems like a mess, but that's one of the tasks you volunteered for. Starting new threads? Seems like all that does is split large boxes into smaller boxes and opens up lots of duplication.

One possible solution would be to allow people who started threads to delete them. How many out there are just "Hey, how are you?" or "Is SOANDSO still here?" I, for one, would take time to go through topics I started and delete any that no longer have any social redeeming qualities.

I would, that is, if I could find a "List all posts by" button like other forums have.

[Kenny1234]

I dont understand the act of penalizing those who come late to a thread for whatever reason. Reasons could be someone took a break, had other life priorities for a bit, or they just now have gotten into new things like route building and are needing further clarification on old subjects...

If there are people who live on here and who object to the "trouble" of new questions on out-of-date content, may I suggest that they GET A LIFE and shut off the computer for a bit. There seems to be a few people on here who hit the refresh button every 15 seconds who are the cause of all the conundrum.

[lordofdragons]

I Know What you can to slove it.... DELETE THEM!!! you wont have this Problem no more

[PORU333]

>I Know What you can to slove it.... DELETE THEM!!! you wont
>have this Problem no more


x( Do that, and there goes all the valuable information some of us, if not ALL need.

Search for it to see if will help you with your problem. If you can't find what you need, or it doesn't help, then start a new thread. No need to bump them.

[geode]

I think that more to the point here, would be better to put more emphasis on people putting more thought into writing in the SUBJECT line something significant to the point of the thread. I see about one out of five that do that. It would make for searching for a solution to a problem much easier.
I started reading this forum a year ago when I started simming, and have read many many of the older threads. Don't know how many threads I overlooked because of subjects stating things NOT related to the subject. And the problem of not being able to search by thread number. I gave up after reading hundreds and it taking too long to get to the the place I left off the day before. To search that way got to be a pain because you can move only three pages at a time and to toggle a couple hundred pages to get to where I wanted got progressivly longer as I searched. We could use some more searching options. But to ask some of the guys on this forum to make their subjects more meaningful...well good luck, it has to be spelled right or we'll never find it. Sometimes we find that we have a better answer to a problem discussed some time ago, and go ahead and post (bump it up) because it might be a helpful solution. Anyhow I believe there is no solution to this problem. Asking folks to get smarter, good luck.

George

[Erick_Cantu]

But we don't want to slove the problem, we want to solve it.

The solution may lie in the fact that I think the forum defaults to sorting 'by topic' or something similar when you first register. Maybe the defaults need to be changed.

[GoGoran]

I disagree with you about your blanket approach to old threads.

Occasionally a thread, up to a year old, will come up, the members who posted on it that long ago are still around, and the new post adds to, or inquires about the same subject. Why should that one be locked? Forums are meant to share information, and it would be helpful to have it all in one place.

What's next, automatic deletion of all threads over two months old?

James

Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's just annoying to have multiple different threads about the same topic exactly.

[GoGoran]

I dont understand the act of penalizing those who come late to a thread for whatever reason. Reasons could be someone took a break, had other life priorities for a bit, or they just now have gotten into new things like route building and are needing further clarification on old subjects...

If there are people who live on here and who object to the "trouble" of new questions on out-of-date content, may I suggest that they GET A LIFE and shut off the computer for a bit. There seems to be a few people on here who hit the refresh button every 15 seconds who are the cause of all the conundrum.

Word. I just saw that thread about high-speed rail in America (found it in the search), read it and found it very interesting. It was was posted a couple of months before I even joined this board, so I had no opportunity of replying to it yet, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject and reply to some of the statements made there, since this is precisely one of my special interest areas. But alas, it got locked in a matter of minutes cause it was "already seven months old". Dude, this very site is 11 years old ! Time for it to disappear from the internet, right ?

[GoGoran]

It is also noteworthy that Wikipedia defines "bumping" as follows:

To bump a thread on an internet forum is to post a reply to it purely in order to raise the thread's profile. This will typically return it to the top of the list of active threads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_%28Internet%29

So by this definition, responding in a thoughtful manner to an old thread, adding to it, addressing some of the points brought up in it by either the threadstarter or other participants, is NOT considered bumping at all, since this is not done "purely to raise the threads profile", but to add to and develop the topic the thread is about.