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Author Topic: Gravedigging  (Read 4215 times)

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Gravedigging
« on: January 29, 2012, 05:37:23 pm »
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What is gravedigging?
-Gravedigging is replying to topics that are at least 2 weeks old.  Most of the time, we do allow replies to topics that are about a month old at best.  While it seems to be removed from the Forum Rules, it is still a problem if you gravedig.  There is a nice red warning that pops up if you decide to reply to a old topic so you probably should not do it.
Are there penalties for gravedigging?
-Not immediately.  However, posting in old threads that are months-years old could result in a temporary disabling of your posting abilities.
How can I respond then to a really cool topic I found?
-Your best option is to contact the original poster via a private message.  Another option would be to start a new topic if you have a question(not just a Can I use this? or Hey this is cool) about the topic material.
Why is this a problem?
-It clutters the newer posts with old irrelevant posts.  When users come to the boards to see replies to new threads, they will have to go through these revived irrelevant topics that should not have been posted in.  In essence, it keeps the forums nice and up-to-date.

In other words:Don't do it.

If the staff feels this is an unnecessary post, feel free to modify/remove it.  For some reason it was missing from the Forum Rules topic.
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thestig
Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2012, 06:13:17 pm »
Instead of punishing your users for gravedigging, why not take this mod: http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2040 and upgrade it for SMF2 stable? That seems like a reasonable way to go rather than the route you're doing now. Just saying.

EDIT: In the end, you will spend less time maintaining that mod than you would actually seeking out people who gravedig.
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2012, 06:14:42 pm »
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That's upto 4sword.  I did not know that a mod existed like that as I have never been involved with the code process of ZFGC.  He may look into it.  Thanks for the heads up gm.
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2012, 06:32:05 pm »
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I should add that if you want to ask someone a question about something and their profile says that they haven't been here in over a month, the likelihood of you getting an answer from someone by posting in a topic of theirs or by PMing them is low. That is just common sense, but sometimes people forget and voice their impatience which gets nobody anywhere.

About the modification, based on activity levels on the forum I don't know if it would be practical - there isn't really that much of a problem, user permissions would have to be altered or customized for certain boards so that they could unlock their own topics (which would complicate if staff locked their topics), and the amount of time that passes before autolocking occurs would vary based on the activity level of the forum (a lot of topics on boards' first pages are two weeks to a month old).
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thestig
Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2012, 06:50:48 pm »
Quote from: 4Sword on January 29, 2012, 06:32:05 pm
About the modification, based on activity levels on the forum I don't know if it would be practical - there isn't really that much of a problem, user permissions would have to be altered or customized for certain boards so that they could unlock their own topics (which would complicate if staff locked their topics), and the amount of time that passes before autolocking occurs would vary based on the activity level of the forum (a lot of topics on boards' first pages are two weeks to a month old).
Mmmm.. well, if that's the case, then why would there even be rules about gravedigging? There's no specification of forum activity in the rules, so I was working under the assumption that forum activity didn't factor into this choice.

So that being said, such a rule shouldn't be practical, no? :P People gravedig sometimes and sometimes good comes out of it (which is why I think the idea of having a rule for gravedigging is quite silly, or unless it's really a problem.. same applies to the idea behind the mod, too, btw). I apologize, I just wanted to try and introduce another idea in regards to this since if there were going to be rules against gravedigging, why not make the job easier and have it done automagically? Haha. You guys do whatever you want. ^^
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2012, 07:00:45 pm »
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It used to be in the 2007 forum rules.  Mammy may have overlooked it when he did the new set in 2008.  Dunno.  i just know that topics that have been gravedug usually get locked and a warning issued.
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thestig
Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2012, 07:05:41 pm »
Quote from: Theforeshadower on January 29, 2012, 07:00:45 pm
It used to be in the 2007 forum rules.  Mammy may have overlooked it when he did the new set in 2008.  Dunno.  i just know that topics that have been gravedug usually get locked and a warning issued.
Ah. Old rules. Well, I was assuming it was just some updated rule policy or something. ^^ Fair enough, either way.
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2012, 07:10:15 pm »
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Hm...  It seems to me that with forum activity as low as it is, why would we want to shoot down grave digging?  I have to say I agree with gm112 on this.  Making a rule about grave digging just because there used to be a rule about grave digging doesn't make much since, and in any case I often find some of the grave dug topics to be rather interesting.  It brings them to my attention when otherwise they may not have been.  The topic may have been old, but the fact that somebody brought it back up makes it a current topic by nature of the fact that a member brought it back up.  That is my two bits at least.

edit: i suppose the rule could have been overlooked when it was re-written...  but either way, do we need that rule?
« Last Edit: January 29, 2012, 07:12:47 pm by Aero88 »
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2012, 07:37:38 pm »
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I just don't like people posting in topics asking questions that common sense or a little investigation would indicate they wouldn't likely get an answer. It is also related to some previous idea I had about chronological relevance - in that if the context of the topic is driven by the actions of a certain users, trying to participate in that conversation late is problematic. If anything, it is fine to post in development-related (with the addition of Community Speak) topics as long as you are adding actual content, if you are not continuing a conversation with users that aren't there, and if you aren't posting frequently into old topics.

It is mostly common sense. If someone is reading through a Zelda Coding topic and it has some information on how to do something but not enough for the user reading it, sometimes posting in an old topic like that would be fine - if the user wants to talk to those who already were in the topic then the user should check first that those people are active. In this case, information is consolidated in one topic rather than being spread out over many topics. Again though, common sense.

I forgot to mention too that some of the problem of gravedigging was handled when the upgrade to SMF 2.0 happened - some of the boards were made read-only so that they couldn't be posted in at all.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2012, 07:45:39 pm by 4Sword »
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thestig
Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2012, 08:14:54 pm »
Quote from: 4Sword on January 29, 2012, 07:37:38 pm
I just don't like people posting in topics asking questions that common sense or a little investigation would indicate they wouldn't likely get an answer. It is also related to some previous idea I had about chronological relevance - in that if the context of the topic is driven by the actions of a certain users, trying to participate in that conversation late is problematic. If anything, it is fine to post in development-related (with the addition of Community Speak) topics as long as you are adding actual content, if you are not continuing a conversation with users that aren't there, and if you aren't posting frequently into old topics.
In regards to the first section, I would agree that the context of the thread is of high importance when it comes to the topic of "gravedigging".  I would say that trolls would gravedig old topics just to bring to light some previous arguments just as an example... but then again, this would simply fall under "distruptive"-class rule more so than "gravedigging" itself. That's why I disagreed with the idea behind having a rule because it's like you said, it's "common sense", so the rule should be an implied rule. There are too many exceptions for this matter to really have a rule that works.

But for revising an old rule, I think this would be fine if there's an extra section added that specifies the chronological relevance point. If that's there, then I guess that would be fine. Right?

Oh and one more note:
Quote
Why is this a problem?
-It clutters the newer posts with old irrelevant posts.  When users come to the boards to see replies to new threads, they will have to go through these revived irrelevant topics that should not have been posted in.  In essence, it keeps the forums nice and up-to-date.
is contradictory in itself. (Sorry, TFS, I don't mean to offend you if I did D: ) Wouldn't creating a whole new topic separate possible answers for other users, thus creating more clutter and fragmentation anyways? It would be better in most cases to have the information contained in one area than it would be to have it scattered in multiple locations. Just something to think about. ;p

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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2012, 08:35:20 pm »
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I was thinking more of the lines of maybe someone using/looking for an older engine.  Previous topics that come to mind are like Goodnight's engines.  Seems like every once in a while someone asks for it because the link is dead and the topic is a couple years old.  I would rather someone posted a new topic asking about it rather than revive the old topic that probably has a lot of dead links.

I just think that most of the time, gravedigging is unnecessary either way.  Mostly just posting about gravedigging to bring it to the attention of our sudden increase in new users.  Some may and have posted in topics where the original owner is no longer active so the gravedig was completely useless.

Basically, trying to discourage gravedigging is my objective right now.  Hope that makes sense.  It's not a big issue right now, but it may or may not be in the future.  Just covering some bases.
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2012, 08:58:17 pm »
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The next biggest issue outside of someone posting in an old topic wrongly is the one or two people who come after and point out the obvious - like seeing someone post in a development topic and then other people come in and add nothing by just chirping that the topic is old and that everyone should know that the topic is old (instead of reporting the topic if they feel the new post was made egregiously). I get what you mean about bringing it up to new users too though and in this case I would recommend PMing the user about it. About creating a new topic if a link is dead, that would probably be fine too, although having it in the same topic would be just as useful for those in the future searching for the same thing.

Otherwise in terms of staff objectives I think that we should prioritize efforts of larger value first - e.g., cleaning up the resource boards, ensuring that those who are global moderators are doing stuff with their abilities or that development related stuff is being worked on. It is good to focus on lesser priorities too as long as they don't distract from the bigger work that has to be done.
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thestig
Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2012, 09:35:59 pm »
@Theforeshadower: I'm not denying that there are use-cases where gravedigging is wrong.. But it's w/e man.. :p Fair enough with your attempts to discourage gravedigging. Just don't go cyber-cop 2.0 on us and indirectly end-up discouraging activity from your efforts. ^^ Doubt that'll happen, though, you're quite level-headed.

Quote from: 4Sword on January 29, 2012, 08:58:17 pm
Otherwise in terms of staff objectives I think that we should prioritize efforts of larger value first - e.g., cleaning up the resource boards, ensuring that those who are global moderators are doing stuff with their abilities or that development related stuff is being worked on. It is good to focus on lesser priorities too as long as they don't distract from the bigger work that has to be done.
*cough*"Community Project"*cough* But that doesn't seem to be on the staff priority list at all, or even acknowledged. I wish there were closer communication between the CP and staff or even mere acknowledgement outside of MG-Zero because people would probably pay attention more. Even though progress is slow, there's been quite a lot of interesting developments going on. But I digress, that's for another topic. Sorry for going off-topic.
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #13 on: February 03, 2012, 03:17:28 pm »
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Honestly I've never understood why communities get up in arms about "gravedigging"

There's gravedigging proper and then there's gravedigging in the broad sense. Gravedigging in the broad sense is posting in old topics, regardless of content or context. Gravedigging proper is when somebody posts a contentless or worthless reply to an old topic, burying new content under obscure stuff people haven't seen in a while. Sometimes gravedigging in the broad sense leads to rejuvenated conversations.

But when somebody posts something like :o to a three year old topic obviously that's stupid. I feel like there's a certain balancing act to it, discretion should be used

Just my two cents
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2012, 04:53:45 pm »
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I was just thinking the same thing wally...  It's one thing when a topic is bumped, it's one thing when a user says 'what happened to this game?', it's another thing when an author (lets look at DanTheMan's recent post) updates a game - well deserving of being bumped up a few topics, rather then making a new one.

Anyway, it's almost 6am, saw a moderation notice and thought I might login. :p
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Re: Gravedigging
« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2012, 05:50:12 pm »
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Gravedigging is
-Posting in an old topic to ask the OP a question, and the OP has not logged in for months
-Posting in an old topic simply to make a comment as if the topic were still active
-Posting in an old topic to call out another user for gravedigging

Gravedigging is not
-Posting in an old topic to update the OP
-Posting in an old topic to ask about a sort of closure (project abandoned, never explained why)

Complex terms can be broken down to simpler means easily.
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