To necro or not to necro, that is the question

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

One aspect of forums I've never understood is when its acceptable to necro a thread or not.

One the one hand, most forums have a rule about searching for similar topics before starting a new thread, and if someone has the audacity to ask a question that's been asked before the forum mafia will show up to complain about how it's been discussed already.

However, if someone does search for a topic, then makes a post on it, the forum mafia will show up to complain about necro bumping as well.

What exactly are people supposed to do?

Well, in most cases the one bumping an old thread is just doing it to flood the front page with old bumped threads, adding no meaningful discussion to the thread itself.

Bumping an old thread here is preferred over starting a new one IF there is still discussion to be had and its not just a bump for bumps sake.

[linayar]

Bumping an old thread here is preferred over starting a new one IF there is still discussion to be had and its not just a bump for bumps sake.

The problem is that people may disagree about if there is still a discussion to be had. There are topics that would just repeat itself, and people continue to discuss them.

I'd say reuse a thread regardless. If there's no discussion to be had, then there's no need to post a response. Meanwhile, new members to the forum can read the historical discussions. It's a good thing in my opinion regardless of any trolling intentions.