I definitely think the crux of the issue is the utility of the reply, and of the original post. If the question is still valid, has not been answered and the reply offers a valid solution, I can't imagine what the problem would be. Now if the original thread had bad information in it or if the necro is harmful or even just useless then I think there is an issue.

That is no more an issue than with any thread, new or old, where those who reply have not checked what has gone before. I'm not missing any point, you are either not reading what i wrote properly or are making an assumption and attributing things to me I never said.

And on top of that, MODS have better things to do with their time than look for threads that are out-of-date. And while it is okay to maybe lock a thread or archive it, I am not a fan of trying to rewrite history by deleting threads ... an exception of course, would be for a thread which could potentially be dangerous or cause problems by be misleading.

There's a lot of problems with necromancy, and a lot of solutions. I've always been fond of the 90 day autolock, (though personally I'd be stricter, just that this forum doesn't have the activity level required), especially since the threads around these parts tend to be spam and idiot magnets; rather than anyone seeking to continue discussion, you'll just have someone show up asking if some thing that last was tested during the reign of King George IV still works.

If you are going to necro-respond to answer a technical problem (particularly in the individual game forums), it's always best to prelude your post with "just in case anyone else gets this old problem, here's the solution".

Don't quote an old post. Don't pretend it's an active thread (although sometimes we all make mistakes reading the age of the thread). Treat it like you know what you're doing and you're doing it to be constructive.

I've found if you approach it like above then the necro-hounds tend to leave you alone.

EDIT: Those who can't handle someone pointing out your necro need to grow a thicker skin, or give up doing it. But don't demand these threads be locked or archived. Let someone else answer it if you can't bear to.

IMHO, searching for a thread with the same topic as something you mean to say and posting there, even if said thread has been inactive for a while, instead of starting a new thread, should be strongly encouraged. And threads should most definitely NOT be deleted, as that just wipes away all the information contained and the effort made by the users posting there, nor autolocked.
And when you have an answer to a question left unanswered is the obvious case of "necroing" being useful, but even asking again, bringing the unanswered thread back to attention, is better than making a new one, since it shows that the problem has existed for longer and others faced it too, and doesn't clutter search results, as it was already said. But besides this obvious question angle, you also have threads that merely are on certain topics, like those prompting users to share or discuss something more or less specific, so if one thread dies but later someone else has the same idea, why start from scratch when they could bring the original thread back (and maybe let older users see what they said back then and how things changed, if they did)?

When I do see a necroed thread, it hasn't been someone finally providing an answer to an otherwise lost and forgotten question.

It's usually someone just replying to a thread that otherwise doesn't contribute to whatever discussion is going on thus does nothing more than to bump a thread. Bumping has it's place, such as forum games (like mafia) that need to have players join up. Otherwise I think that bumping should be discouraged.

I've also seen old news posts get necroed, such as the adult games sale from May, yet someone felt the need to revive the thread in late September. Rather than let it die, more people kept posting (and therefore bumping) this old sale thread. GOG should make a rule for itself that if there is no contest being run in a sales thread, then it is locked when the sale is over.

reminds me of looking for a particular solution with low level programming in some language, do some searches and find a hit. Only to find it was me asking the same question 2-3 years earlier, and hadn't gotten any answers. Or in some cases a necro thread has returned multiple times. Started in say 2014, got a reply in 2017, and then again in 2022... all within a handful of posts each.

Though one problem i've seen with Necro threads is it can hit the server hard. Data tends to be stored chronologically and in clusters, so replies can be dozens or hundreds of megabytes apart from necro to recent posts. Defragging (or simply re-sorting the data internally so all relevant/related data is together) would be a bit easier on the forum longer term.


Either way, unless the topic is way out there, i don't see why you can't add to it so long as it's related.

@Cavalary
Good points. the problem is that some topics are not Q&A and therefore should not be locked and should be able to posted to ANYTIME.

The big overall question is - why is it a problem someone posting in an old topic. As a reader, ignore it.

I cannot tell you how many times I am looking for Q&A and they are closed wouthout an answer(so cant post an answer) = wasting search engines

I personnaly answered this question years ago .
"no necroing" DOES imply 2 things never mentioned :
- the discussion should be locked to prevent this if REALLY it is bad.
- the whole topic should be deleted if REALLY it is obsolete. (and as archive and/or history, it is useful)

If not, any discussion should be able to be followed even after years of sleeping, because that's the mere conception of internet topics, and this whole concept shouldn't be "discouraged" only because old topics remerging seems to "hurt" the eyes of some people who can't ignore what disinterrest them... (this point is the main issue to me)
(and I speak not only about video games or trivial subjects, but also from a long time activism perspective, about very long fights and old forums with old subjects still on topic)

And about this : "very few necro posts are answers to a question. most are just random replies to a user which may have left the forum years ago, no longer care about the subject, or the answer have actually been given. many necro posts are by spammers. "

Every of those issues are the same no matter if the topic is old or not. On internet, chronology of facts and words is important, temporality not really. (or, again, lets question the whole internet "active-archive" concept)

Great topic and perfectly accurate. Necro-posting is good; not bad. People just call "random drive-by in random thread to spew random nonsense" necroposting if said random thread was one that hadn't been posted to in a while. The random spew is the problem, not where it happened.

The original post not once mentioned the GOG forums.

It could have been a post on any forum anywhere.

And IMHO GOG forums don't have a problem with necro-posting, in so far as, the majority of necro-posts that are spam get locked, and the majority of necro-posts that are valid continuations of the thread are allowed to continue without stigma.

All the complaints here are to generic entities "a forum" "the Admin" "or SYSOP"

This post is borderline trolling. Take your generic complaints to a forum that actually has this problem, and leave GOG forums to its many other actual problems.