# Zombie threads



## Ynot

Does it really matter if someone else thinks a thread is a "zombie thread" because it is an older thread? I mean somebody found the thread to be topical to them. Why are these threads shut down, when so much insight can be gleaned from them?


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## Dude007

I like Zombies, they don't ***** about "thread jacking"!!!! DUDE


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## GusPolinski

Well, they're not deleted.

And besides, when a new poster jumps into a thread and attempts to engage either the OP or other contributing posters (none of which may be active here any longer), he or she isn't going to get much out of that. Better to lock the thread and suggest that he or she start his or her own thread in the appropriate forum in order to solicit feedback from active posters, IMO.


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## jorgegene

i always wonder how these thread are found and then responded to.
i mean, do people really go that far back in the archives, like 'page 114' (that's a lot of digging), or maybe 
more likely they do a search to find some subject and ignore the date.

zombie threads don't bother me, even if the OP is long gone. they can still be interesting.
it's funny though how someone will go at it after space of 3 years as though the last post was yesterday.


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## norajane

jorgegene said:


> i always wonder how these thread are found and then responded to.
> i mean, do people really go that far back in the archives, like 'page 114' (that's a lot of digging), or maybe
> more likely they do a search to find some subject and ignore the date.
> 
> zombie threads don't bother me, even if the OP is long gone. they can still be interesting.
> it's funny though how someone will go at it after space of 3 years as though the last post was yesterday.


If you open a current thread, like this one about zombie threads, and you scroll all the way down the page to the bottom, you see similar threads with the word zombie in the title. If you click on those, some of them may be old. Also, people can search the site, like for "MIL problems" and they get a list of threads, old and current.


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## Ynot

GusPolinski said:


> Well, they're not deleted.
> 
> And besides, when a new poster jumps into a thread and attempts to engage either the OP or other contributing posters (none of which may be active here any longer), he or she isn't going to get much out of that. Better to lock the thread and suggest that he or she start his or her own thread in the appropriate forum in order to solicit feedback from active posters, IMO.


No, they aren't deleted.. They are just closed when someone complains. The fact remains that either the OP or someone else who might have posted might see the thread and respond with a more developed or evolved opinion than what was originally offered. I seriously doubt that anyone actually goes looking for a long ago thread simply to resurrect it out of boredom. Rather I think that someone posting to a long dormant thread is probably doing so because somehow whatever they read struck a nerve with them. I would rather see a thread live or die on its own rather than have some moderator shut it down because somebody whined about a zombie thread.


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