Possible change to highlight thread necros
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 12:44 am
Hello realGM site administrators, BombsquadSammy said this in response to my post in his sound GM post involving thread necro'ing becoming a bit of a problem lately.
I put approximately one long bathroom break of thought into a possible solution, which I have not seen on any other forum (and therefore, likely, is impossible to implement. Let's say someone sees an old thread with an eye on necroing it back up to the top. Not all of us carefully check the dates of every post, so every time this occurs, people inevitably quote something from back then without realizing it's not a current post.
My idea: If a post is made after another post older than a certain date, the new post, and next three after that, have a visibly different background, which fades back to the usual forum background colors after a couple posts. Say, any post made with a full month of inactivity since the previous is highlighted with a mildly bright red tone. The next post responding to that bump would be approximately 75% as red, then 50, 25, and after that back to normal. I frequent another thread that inserts a simple line break in between posts I have already read, and new content - so just above the red-highlighted necro, we would also see a "Newer Content Follows" line.
While scanning a thread, viewers would clearly see this recent burst in activity and be able to comment as such. Perhaps the coding of your forums would even allow for a more intense color depending on how long of a thread necro it was. Say, a mild red for that month re-post, but a year or more is an intense red, showing very clearly to us that it's responding to very old content. This would clarify thread necros to both regular viewers and admins watching the thread, and perhaps provide a mild deterrent to the practice.
Anyway, figured I'd drop the idea over here as Sammy suggested. I doubt this is implementable, or even worth the effort, but it would be unique to this forum, at least! Cheers guys and keep up the hard work.
BombsquadSammy wrote:ImSlower wrote:I am not as worried about the ethics behind bumping old threads as much as the logistics of re-reading them. Perhaps if there were some clearly visual way to discern months-old content from some self-justified guy hoping to stick it to bad takes - moreso than simply scanning the Date Posted text til we find the first current post. Clearly wouldn't happen because it would encourage this stuff, but maybe posts separated by more than 3 months have a noticeable background hue change.
Irrelevant as we won't be seeing these post-necros anyway. Just link and quote the guy y'all want to dig up a 2018 hot take from.
You have intriguing ideas! May I suggest a thread on our feedback and suggestions board?
I put approximately one long bathroom break of thought into a possible solution, which I have not seen on any other forum (and therefore, likely, is impossible to implement. Let's say someone sees an old thread with an eye on necroing it back up to the top. Not all of us carefully check the dates of every post, so every time this occurs, people inevitably quote something from back then without realizing it's not a current post.
My idea: If a post is made after another post older than a certain date, the new post, and next three after that, have a visibly different background, which fades back to the usual forum background colors after a couple posts. Say, any post made with a full month of inactivity since the previous is highlighted with a mildly bright red tone. The next post responding to that bump would be approximately 75% as red, then 50, 25, and after that back to normal. I frequent another thread that inserts a simple line break in between posts I have already read, and new content - so just above the red-highlighted necro, we would also see a "Newer Content Follows" line.
While scanning a thread, viewers would clearly see this recent burst in activity and be able to comment as such. Perhaps the coding of your forums would even allow for a more intense color depending on how long of a thread necro it was. Say, a mild red for that month re-post, but a year or more is an intense red, showing very clearly to us that it's responding to very old content. This would clarify thread necros to both regular viewers and admins watching the thread, and perhaps provide a mild deterrent to the practice.
Anyway, figured I'd drop the idea over here as Sammy suggested. I doubt this is implementable, or even worth the effort, but it would be unique to this forum, at least! Cheers guys and keep up the hard work.