MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > The rule against replying to old threads...

The rule against replying to old threads is the dumbest forum rule ever

posted 2 months ago by MaximRecoil (4836)
24 replies | jump to latest

I'm not talking about MovieChat, which has no such rule, but a lot of forums do. And there are also a lot of forums that have an "unwritten rule" against it.

How did such a nonsensical and irrational rule become so widespread? The people who make and support this rule are mentally ill, specifically, they have a phobia (irrational fear of / aversion to encountering new replies to old threads).

It's not really the dumbest forum rule ever, but it's the dumbest common forum rule. I know of even dumber ones that are uncommon or unique to one particular forum, such as Doom9's rule against asking, "What's the best...?" They "justify" that rule by saying that "best" is subjective, which isn't always true, and even in cases where it is true, arguments over "best" tend to be especially good at producing useful information, regardless of whether or not anyone manages to conclusively prove that something is the best.

[–] AndyKing1967 (39764) 2 months ago

Thankfully, this is the only site I frequent.

[–] parkerbot (10655) 2 months ago

Then why does your browser history keep showing this site?

https://make-everything-ok.com/

[–] AndyKing1967 (39764) 2 months ago

My browser history might look more interesting, but luckily it’s on automatic delete.

[–] parkerbot (10655) 2 months ago

Google remembers.

[–] AndyKing1967 (39764) 2 months ago

Tor is your friend.

[–] parkerbot (10655) 2 months ago

Who are the five not named people who founded it and why does the US government fund it?

Tor just wants you to think it's your friend.

Parkerbot will be your friend. For a small fee of course.

[–] AndyKing1967 (39764) 2 months ago

I’m sure there are millions of people with stuff far worse than me.

[–] Valerian (-273) 2 months ago

[deleted]

[–] MaximRecoil (4836) 2 months ago

I don't think I've ever seen an actual written rule against posting in all caps on any forum, but it's a nearly universal "unwritten rule" across the entire internet, and has been for as long as the internet has existed. This forum has, or had, its own CAPTAIN CAPS LOCK, but I put him on ignore years ago.

[–] Valerian (-273) 2 months ago

[deleted]

[–] Kowalski (78804) 2 months ago

SERIOUSLY?

[–] Kowalski (78804) 2 months ago

WHY?🤔

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78491) 2 months ago

KOWALSKI and his daughter are very funny, charming and kind people. Why ignore a poster who rescues animals, constantly talks movies and is a devoted dad to a really great young lady?

Your call but I’d never ignore either of them, they are part of the big picture here✌️

[–] db20db (17726) 2 months ago

"Posting in CAPS LOCK is very often taken as screaming and is therefore not appreciated, Nor is posting entire posts in a very huge size."

What a completely redundant, stupid comment!

[–] overseas7 (5070) 2 months ago

Sometimes I reply old threads (e.g. eight years old) if the subject is interesting. I do not know why that should be something wrong.

[–] MaximRecoil (4836) 2 months ago

It shouldn't be something wrong. The idea that you should start a new thread instead, when all the information and context for your reply already exists in the old thread, has no basis in rational thought. The common pushback against it is a purely irrational, knee-jerk reaction that not one of them can offer a valid explanation for.

[–] jriley555 (8535) 2 months ago

Yeah, totally don't get the rationale (because none exists). I've encountered that fetish on other forums too.

The very -point- of incorporating the old IMDB posts was to preserve institutional memory around film, tv, entertainment that had been accumulated, with a very wide and often sophisticated, at that time, user base. Integrating that base with fresh insights is exactly what we'd want to promote here.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78491) 2 months ago

I respond to old threads about movies, sometimes new opinions come up and the movie discussions can continue.

It’s mostly why we are here.

[–] fourlemons (3554) 2 months ago

I'm glad this forum does not have that rule. Someone asked me a few weeks back to let him know when my son watched a particular movie he recommended and I haven't forgotten. I periodically ask my son if he's watched it, and once he has I'm going to respond to that person even if the thread is months old. 😁

[–] MarkPh (1019) 2 months ago

Been there, doing that myself, seeing some topic in some forum with postings in it I wanted to reply to without realizing the last post in that topic was several years old.
To a certain extent it makes sense not wanting replies in such an old topic, because often the ones previously posting in there aren't even members of that forum anymore or at least not active ones.
Furthermore they are often way obsolete topics.

To my mind it's the combination of a search function that finds search terms independent of how old the postings are and a programming of the forum that doesn't automatically lock and archive topics in which nobody has posted anything for a long time.

[–] MaximRecoil (4836) 2 months ago

"To a certain extent it makes sense not wanting replies in such an old topic, because often the ones previously posting in there aren't even members of that forum anymore or at least not active ones."

That rarely matters, certainly not often enough to warrant a blanket ban against it. It would only matter if you're asking a question that only one non-active member from the old thread can possibly answer, and even in cases like that, there's still no harm done.

"Furthermore they are often way obsolete topics."

How does a topic become obsolete? In any case, if someone is replying to it, it's not obsolete.

[–] MarkPh (1019) 2 months ago

Obsolete it becomes when a topic has replies in several different directions, where at some point users opened new topics for each direction separate and you then reply to the original all in one thread that nobody reads anymore.
Obsolete it becomes when some troll has dragged a topic far off, got banned by admins and users have afterwards opened a new thread for the same topic to start over without the postings of that troll in between.
Obsolete it becomes when there was a TV series with an actor who has left the show at some point, the topic is about speculations whether or not he might return to the series, while the show has been cancelled and the actor has died in the meantime.

..... and so on.

[–] zack14 (347) 2 months ago

wrong

[–] Zarkoff (2392) 2 months ago

It's an unwritten rule on a lot of them.

Don't revive old threads.

But also don't create a new thread on a subject that's been brought up before. Yeah, forum mods and rule police can be the worst.