<soapbox> It's painfully obvious to anyone who reads the forums here that gravedigging (posting a reply to a topic that hasn't been replied to in a while) seems to be a major offense. I'm in the "What's wrong with resurrecting a dead topic?" camp myself. Especially if someone originally posted something misleading or just plain wrong,, and someone wants to offer a correction/clarification. It's not as if you can't skip straight to the new/unseen posts in such a topic. And hell, why lash out at people wanting to discuss the game or whatever, even if they are taking up a discussion that last saw activity a year or two ago? If you want them to reply to new topics, make new topics for them to reply to! If you want them to make new topics, don't lash out at them if they ask a question that's been answered before. It's asinine--utterly asinine and a tired web forum cliché to boot--to scold them for "not using the search" (and come on--most forum search systems are utter crap at providing useful results for a search of any meaningful complexity, if such a search is even possible within the capabilities of the forum software in question) when maybe, just maybe, they want to start some fresh gods-damned conversation on the topic. If you don't want gravedigging to happen period, phpBB should be configurable/modifiable such that topics autoclose/lock when they become stagnant for a defined period of time. Then you don't have to keep whining at people who do it, and I don't have to keep reading the whines when people do it. Just my 2 bits. </soapbox>
The search system of phpBB is one of the most complex and advanced forum searches there is, and aslong as you know how to use it it always gives you what you're looking for. And if someone wants to take up an old discussion, make a new topic and make a link to the original topic, it's as easy as that.
Actually phpBB's search feature is pretty crap and fairly limited. There is an auto-lock mod out there too. I've seen it. I thought about installing it. I failed to care. I lay the blame for the anti-gravedigging solely on Jarinor's sorry arse. He whinged about it the most. He was a mod and played SMACKDOWN on people who did it. He even said it was bad in the rules. People just followed. As the (seemingly) only Administrator who comes here on a regular basis anymore, my own policy is not to care. People will whinge about it but hell, people whinge about stuff anyway. It's a forum, that seems to be what they're for. There've been plenty of times when I've read a thread that "I thought was new" and as I'm scrolling down, lo and behold, there's a post from me. Just as I think "What the...?" I notice the date. After that I skip to the end and see who's responsible. Generally it's a retard and most times they're a new user too. Their retardedness is what generates the complaints more often than the grave-digging. The grave-digging is just a physical representation of that retardedness. In the long run, it's that same retardedness that sees them leave or get banned. It is annoying when someone digs up something and replies to someone who's long since gone. That happens a fair bit in the mod forum. In those times though, the answer can be useful for anyone else down the track. It's a question, it took two years to get answered, it's no big deal to me. That said, I do have my limits on it though. Deliberate grave-digging is not on. Generally this forum is pretty quiet though and anyone posting anything is a nice thing to see, so I just let it ride more often than not. As I said, most of the grave-diggers don't stay around for long anyway. If they do, either everyone else eventually beats them in to shape or they get their arses kicked off.
Because it is fucking annoying when people don't have anything more useful to add than "yeah i agree LOL" to something others said several years ago. Arguably, most gravedigs (especially the more recent ones) have been just that. No, it's nothing but fucking stupid, and if there's a question regarding some feature or another the rational thing to do would be to make a new thread for it. Spamming down the forums so the newbies can have a playing ground? True. Believe it's been a while since anyone was criticised for not using the search though. No. Then we wouldn't have mrnobodies "who needs a laugh" thread anymore, and I can't have that.
OFcourse it is, it's a forum search tool. But compared to other forum software, I find phpBB to be quite good, atleast if you've used it enough.
