Friday, December 29, 2017

Why am I a necromancer.


Some forum zealots are bullying poor souls who answer or correct 2, 3 or 5 years old threads. Same zealots are at the same time usually scolding users that don't first search and only later ask.

Now my question is what is the point in searching in 5 years old posts that have never been updated? If we are going to have a canonical source of truth for every question, then we would have to update those. Or if we consider old threads not interesting thus shouldn't be updated, then why don't we delete them after some time to stop polluting Internet search engine results?

I personally find most sense to keep old threads and when there is some update, then put it in. If I reached a thread, then it had a pretty high search rating, so it is likely other users would hit that one too. Why create a new thread and make information harder to reach? Or why delete old posts that might be useful. Even outdated, they often provide necessary clues to get closer to the desired results.

My track record so far is some 22 necromancer badges on StackOverflow so I think other people also appreciate my approach. In fact, most of my answers are to old questions that I reached by means of Internet search engines and decided to update.

Now there is the dark side of clueless users that put useless comments in old threads. Or don't understand what has been already written (or didn't read it) and ask stupid questions [*]. The thing is that they can't be avoided unfortunately and they spam even new threads. I don't think useless bumping of old threads should be treated equally to useful updates made to old threads.

In summary:
  • Old thread
    • useful post
      • upvote
      • clap
      • thank
      • like
      • etc.
    • useless comment/stupid question
      • downvote
      • remove post
      • send angry face
      • ban the user
      • remove account
      • report to police
      • etc.
  • Recent thread
    • useful post
      • upvote
      • clap
      • thank
      • like
      • etc.
    • useless comment/stupid question
      • downvote
      • remove post
      • send angry face
      • ban the user
      • remove account
      • report to police
      • etc.
Happy necromancing.

[*] I'm not immune to asking stupid question. I'm somehow exaggerating, the point being one shouldn't attack every post to an old thread regardless of its quality.

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