There have been a ton of zombie thread bumps lately. Is there a way for COTH to turn off replies for topics that are older than, say, 6 months or a year?
I agree that would be cool! If there were legitimate updates, the OP could ask for the thread to be opened.
I’ve also seen forums that limit posting on older threads (like over a year?) to established posters. Newbies can’t do it. Thought that was BRILLIANT!
I am a strong dissenter for closing old threads, and I would really dislike having the time delays involved in having to ask a moderator to re-open an old thread. It is often helpful to read older posts about a topic and avoid having people re-state eloquent advice, experience or debate which might already exist.
However, I’m wondering if Simkie’s idea of limiting access to older threads might be the only way to prevent the spam posts. It would be ideal if older threads were only open to posters with at least a certain number of posts, say a small number like ten or twenty posts. That would prevent the types of spam which we have been plagued with recently.
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Limiting older threads to posters with only a certain number of posts removes the ability to complain about someone not using the search function. A newbie can’t just add their details to an existing older thread (the age old question of - now that you have used this product for a year, do you still like it? I am thinking of buying one - for example).
Zombie threads have always happened.
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Do you frequently see that sort of bump of an old thread? Thinking back, I don’t think I do.
I see nearly all a spam posters. Sometimes it’s a brand new poster, asking a sort of related but really should have its own thread question. Sometimes people say they can’t figure out how to start a new thread, so are replying instead, because they see how to do that. But if I had to put a number to it…90% spam posters bumping old threads? More?
We all have a different forum mix, and it may be a little different forum to forum?
Recently (within the last four months) there has been an influx of new members who actually are new members that have brought up old threads … 20%?
But none of the newer members have had fewer than 10 or so posts when they brought back an older thread
Maybe if threads older than a few years could have a color change of the heading from black to red or another color so a person at a glance would know that the thread was old.
But… I really do not believe that will occur, so I just read the dates
So, what do I see after posting the above… a zombie thread in Hunter Jumper where a new poster posting first post has brought up a five year old thread… that is not what attracted my attention …it was what they posted was incorrect reference to a tax law.
Really do not know if the poster is a Spammer or a real person… so mods get to decide
I would say that, even though the old thread may be BUMPED by a spam post, about 50% continue with relevant discussions.
Personally, I would rather see an old thread revitalized, thereby resurfacing the old comments, than see a new thread, and everyone who responded to the old thread having to post the same response all over again.
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I disagree with shutting down responses to old threads. Sometimes they bring up interesting subjects. Sometimes the OP comes back to give updates. Sure, bots and houseguests will bump things unnecessarily… but it is easy enough to look at the date and KNOW that and ignore it. I like the ability to bring up older posts and see real updates.
I like the idea of requiring at least 5 previous posts before being able to reply to posts over a year old. However, not sure if that is possible with vbulletin.
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I have gotten into the habit of checking the start date of threads to avoid the zombies.
I like @clanter 's idea of changing color of the title - seems easy enough (to technically-challenged Me) or maybe adding a Zombie icon? 
I wish people would just start a new thread about whatever subject they are dragging up from years ago.
I can understand their interest in a subject, but no one wants to read a thread with 150 posts from 2007 to get to the new part.
There must be some way to educate new posters so they are able to start a thread on their subject of interest. I too have begun to check the date before reading.
New posters , please learn how to start a thread. It’s not difficult and if you ask, someone will explain to you how to do it.:yes:
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under user settings I think you can select
Latest Activity
then you will see the original thread post then reverse order of postings on the thread… most current then to older… at least that what appears to happen
Totally agree, and it’s also frustrating to type out a carefully thought out reply…for an issue that was well-resolved years ago, responding to someone who hasn’t been to the board in years.
Not to mention that decade old advice might not even be relevant anymore (products off the market, or replaced with better options.)
A color change for old threads is a cool idea. Anything to draw attention to the date, since it’s just so easy to miss.
I like the color change idea too, but just the thread title so that it won’t destroy Zu Zu’s posts!
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I think it would be a wise idea for COTH to set the basic search results to be sorted by “newest to oldest” or “most recent activity” as a default instead of by title (which makes no sense anyways). If you search using advanced you’ll get more recent results (unless you set it to find older ones). However, if you just type a term into the main search box you’ll get a smattering of really old posts. For example, we’ve all been talking passwords recently… but if you search “password” you’ll get results from 2006 showing first. If you search “oxer” you get threads from 2001. This search results display is likely a big reason why people who are newer bring up random old threads. If they do a basic search it is what pops up for them. If they aren’t front and center I bet (other than the let’s pile on the bad review bumps) you’d see less zombie threads.
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Loving this feedback. The threads I’ve seen lately were all bumped by spammers (related or not, I don’t care!) or as someone else mentioned, someone not knowing how to start a new thread. I haven’t seen any product review bumps, but maybe they are in other boards that I don’t visit!
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Excellent observation. It would make sense to set default search to sort by date and limit search term to title of thread.
I can’t seem to tag @moderator1 here, but that seems like something that would be fairly easy to implement and not require much in the way of development hours. Worth a try?
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Just jump to the last page.
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Since they’re working on things related to guarding against evil-doers right now, I’m not going to broach this topic with the developers right now, but please give me a prod in a week or two if this thread is no longer active, so I remember to talk to them about options.
I’m thinking color change might be an issue, since we already implement a change going from unread to read, but limiting posts on old threads to users with some posts under their belts may work… Also, seeing if we can change the parameters on the basic search…which is horrible. 
Thanks for the input!
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Thanks @Moderator 1!
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@Moderator 1 you are indeed a wise person 
I’m sure one of us will ping you again in a few weeks. Thanks for being willing to follow up on this (I like the idea of setting old threads to read-only) after some period of time; the info is still viewable but more discussion would be in a new threat.
Thank the developers also for their unplanned work on evil-doers
