Revive old threads or start new threads?

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I searched and couldn't find a rule for these fora (Yes, that is the correct plural form of forum, but I don't expect WP to actually correct that ).

Necro or new threads; what's preferred here? Is there a policy or guideline? Why or why not? There's a poll for the heck of it.

Personally, I think it makes more sense to usually continue old threads. It keeps the thread count down and consolidates the information into one place so any relevant ideas about that topic aren't missed, unless they warrant a thread of their own. I think it's especially relevant if someone is expected to have searched threads already.

Sorry for nitpicking, but actually both forms are accurate, with "forums" being the more preferred version.

I still believe that this is only due to acceptance of this grammatical abomination, and I assert that the original Latin was "fora" and therefore, regardless of changing the rules to match common usage, "forums" is grammatically inferior even if preferred.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fora#Latin

Just having fun BTW.

I know that the suffix for the nominative plural of the neuter nouns in Latin is "a", but your co-patriots decided they prefer the English manner of forming plurals. Perhaps you should propose a reform? Or start a revolution?

It just seems to me that you can't do either without somebody complaining or implying as much - I think one of the measures should be adopted and stuck with as a policy.

Reviving old good threads ought to be fine, it just takes more work to find a thread which already exists rather than create yet another clone. Also I'll go with the newbie's statement of preference for fora as the plural of forum, even though I think I know what their goal is, their statement of reasoning for the proper plural is correct in my opinion.

Depends how old the thread is. Bumping 3 year old threads tends to cause confusion. If the last post in the thread is older than 6 months old, I'd start a new one.

Also, digging up dead threads that were controversial or contentious or full of drama and arguments is easy to interpret as an antagonistic action.

Personally, I prefer new threads, keeps things fresh and rolling.

^ Me too, but that's just me. Plus, if someone bumps really old threads just to quote someone (like I've seen here a few times before), that person may well have left a long time ago anyway, making the statement a little redundant.

i agree with TenPencePiece... there isn't really a rule for this, but it's best to use common sense about how people will react, including the OP. this is what i've observed.... in a non-official capacity:

if the OP is asking about a situation that they needed advice for right away, it makes the most sense to start a new thread as the original situation is long resolved. i saw this happen with an individual who resurrected his own thread to give an update years later and helpful people jumped in to assist him with his situation - even though he had broken up with his girlfriend long ago. they read the original post and didn't notice the date.

another problem is when controversial threads get resurrected and members get arguing with people who are long gone (even members who may have been banned for their behaviour on the thread). WP has a high turnover of active members (with the exception of some long-term core people) and has some cyclical members leave/return periodically so these things can make it sort of confusing when a thread is resurrected.

but other threads, especially lighthearted ones, or games, or special interests, or general autism discussions, etc.... it makes more sense (in my opinion) to resurrect a thread in those kinds of cases.

I get annoyed when old threads get bumped. Bumping random threads and threads in the games section and quizzes is fine but other threads in the support section bug me. Lot of people who have posted in them don't even come here anymore, especially the OP, and people reply to posters who don't even come here anymore and it's one of my pet peeves. Lot of people don't bother looking at the dates before responding. I get pissed if I make a reply and then see the thread is three years old so I have wasted my time even making a response. So I have learned to look at the dates. When I respond in an old thread that has been bumped, I respond to the recent replies and ignore the old one and I don't bother responding to them. I wish everyone else would do that.


But I don't mind if the OP bumps their old threads for an update but it can still cause confusion because people still don't even bother to read the last page before responding or reading all of the responses.

Don't revive old threads. Most of the time the posters in it don't even come here any more.

I'd have preferred a third nuanced option in the poll, but I chose revive old, unless they're really old or they sucked.

How about: "If you revive it, you have to have read the whole thing"?

Well I think it's already been concluded that those type of threads are alright to bump, right?

If it's a non-light hearted thread from 2005 that has twenty pages, I wouldn't revive it, personally.

What if it's a light hearted thread that's 40,000 pages long from 1947?