I have had threads on reddit that were well over 5 years old get comments. I'm not upset, but I am questioning how you ended up so deep in the past + what the hell past me was thinking.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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Perfectly fine. Bumps don't do what they used to do in messageboard/BBS contexts, so if you have something useful/clever/funny to say in a dead thread I say go for it.
Heck, sometimes it can prompt a follow-up when someone says "You know, I should do [x related to topic]" after some time has passed, which is fun.
I acknowledge it. I preface my post with something, usually /rezz or I'll comment "I know this is old but..."
On Lemmy? Go for it.
Me posting in a thread that was last active in 2005:
Thread necromancer should be a Halloween costume
We had the opportunity to do something really funny, here
You still can if you come back in 5 years
The wording had initially confused me.
I thought this was about posts that got no comments, not about necro'ing posts.
Honestly, I think necro'ing posts is really only a problem when your forum software doesn't have many options for sorting the feed. Lemmy is more advanced; if you don't like necro'd posts, then just don't sort by recent activity.
Not if we keep this thread alive.
In memory of the lost ones: *Bump
In my experience people primarily get annoyed at thread necro when it's to ask/discuss something tangential to the initial thread. Just start a new one in that case, instead of potentially bumping notifications to several people for your barely-related issue/discussion.
OTOH if it's relevant info for a long dead thread then by all means add it or ask your query, that info could be valuable to someone with the same issue or it could be a pertinent update to an old discussion with new info.
There's nothing inherently wrong with necroing a thread though. Automated archiving of threads is mostly counter-productive. Like when I find a closed and locked thread on GitHub that I have a fix for I just go "oh well guess they can find the fix themselves".
If I come across a post and I have something significant enough to comment, I leave it regardless of age. But I don’t think I’m ever going to see anything more than a few days old with how I browse.
The older the thread the funnier necroing is. If the forums I was on in middle school were still around you can bet I'd be bumping some of those threads just for teh lulz.
"Dead" as in recent but crickets, or as in 2 years old but quiet?
If the former, fill yer boots and go wild. If the latter, then you're necrobumping and have a circle of hell with your name on it.
I don't make the rules...
I never understood the taboo.
It's a holdover from old BBS forum style.
When you reply to an ancient thread, it immediately gets pushed to the top of the board. Now everyone basically is wondering what this 5 year old topic is doing on the first page. And they might have to read through several pages of messages to understand what the hell the newest reply is about because nobody remembers the topic in the first place.
With Reddit/Lemmy, the upvote system means it really doesn't matter at all if you reply to an ancient thread, it won't jump to the front page for anyone.
Ah yes, that would have been annoying. I started in the era of small web forums where activity was split out from recency by page or dialog.
yes it will for those who (like me) are sorting by "new comments"
But you know what you're getting into, then, so it's not confusing or a problem.
Me neither, but someone commented here it's a holdover from the days of forums where a new reply to an old thread would instantly put that thread at the top of the forums because the order was always latest reply. This was found annoying by some people especially if the new reply was short and meaningless or something. Makes more sense to me now.
If it's a question that has no answer (or no useful answer) it's totally fine to comment with an answer.
I figure that someone will eventually stumble across the same thread that I did if they have a similar question. Might as well contribute and share some knowledge.
My favorite was a specific problem I had modding Morrowind on Linux years ago and posting to reddit.
Only for years to pass and I search for the same problem, only to find my own damn post with no replies.
I'll let you know in a year.
If you're replying to a conversation that's not hot-hot-hot, it's because there's new info.
Of course update a thread with new info. Threads aren't lettuce.
This dainty notion of FOMO-based gatekeeping - you missed out, and the thread is just too stale for you - is quaint but valueless.
Most news threads are posted so often that they die in a week.
Older = Less eyes than when posted. (And thats ok.) For particularly dead subs or the news subs, Less eyes means no eyes.
without a bumping system, fresh eyes will check the first 100ish and say "I have seen everything here" and their clients will mark it as read. I want to see notifications for more than just repliesto my own stuff.
Some subs are so niche/dead and Without markers like replies it can feel demotivating.
I dont want to feel like this.
Depends on the type of community, forums it's potentially disruptive since it bumps it to the top. Redsit/Lemmy style it matters less.
I certainly would advocate against archiving Lemmy posts in a way that "locks" them, I can't tell you how many times an old reddit post shows up in a search result and helpful newer replies with the most recent information is still getting added sporadically.
Every thread on lemmy is dead
By reddit standards maybe. I'll tell you though I am always delighted whenever I recognize a user from another thread.
It's so easy bc there's only dozens of them
Even on reddit I'd get replies to years old comments. I remember one user watching Breaking Bad and reading the old response threads and engaging with me from there.
I don't mind at all, especially as I'm trying to be uplifting with my comments.
Time changes as you age. A couple years is not dead.
I love notifications about replies to the old stuff as it means that the internet has slowed down and new and shining isn't as appealing as old stuff.
I do too! I mean notifications of replies are always a shot of dopamine no matter how old.
That reminds me there's this dude who replied to a pic I posted with "Can use this as an album cover?" I said sure and he said "Cool see me in a year". I replied a year later "How's that album coming along?" and was like "give me another year" lol. It's almost been two years now. Gonna check in again soon.
It is a holdover from the old forum days when adding a comment would pop a thread to the top of the front page, so someone going through and commenting on multiple old posts would flood the front page with outdated discussions. Generally those people would also post worthless comments, like 'Thanks', that didn't add anything.
Now that we have more ways to sort the underlying problem is no longer relevant, but some people still hold on to that mindset. Some people who weren't around for the older forums may have caught the disdain from others, or could even just have it in their minds that discussions always have limited time frames for whatever reason.
I don't care unless someone relies to my comment to continue some stupid argument they started four months ago.
Thanks.
Oh I didn't know that! I didn't grow up on forums but I used them a few times here and there. You're right new replies do push a thread to the top. Kind of a bad design lol.
It was a great design when the intent was to make new discussion visible. It was great for reviving threads when new and prodictive discussion was added!
Like any design, there will be cases where it doesn't work as intended. It is hard to design around people adding non-productive comments.
Fair point
There's only one forum I visit nowadays and it gets older threads revived every now and then. Usually to say "Whatever happened to that? Is it done yet?"
If it's relevant for future people who found the thread the same way I did, sure. It's like of you were looking for a treasure in a network of caves, and you see writing in the wall from previous treasure seekers saying "beware of bats." If I add "left cave has dragon" it might help someone else.
Also, if the OP or other accounts are still active, they might get still a notification.
Oh like dark souls lol.
I was thinking more like the end of Month Python and the Holy Grail, but sure.
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