Forum Necromancy

I have proof! In an ancient era long forgotten -- back in May -- a young dwarf named Grothym asked if his character, after many many in-game alcoholic beverages, could black out or even die from alcohol poisoning. Drysc, the Blizzard Community manager, rightly thought this was a funny suggestion and commented: "I proposed that eventually the screen goes black and you wake up in a random capital city of the opposite faction, but it didn't fly." Then the thread went on for a few more pages and petered out. Aside from a brief stint in July, the thread remained dead until just a few days ago, when some druid with an impossible-to-pronounce name raised this thread from the depths of the forum archives, back onto the front page. No doubt he had been inspired by the Lich King.
Fortunately, Blizzard's Gruul-like defender of the forums smashed this zombie-thread with the following words:
As a rule of thumb, bumping an old discarded thread to the first page is considered to be against the Forum Code of Conduct. While there are indeed exceptions based on the topic and circumstances, in general it is recommended not to post in this manner, as it can lead to suspensions of one's posting privileges.Yes. You read that right: suspensions of one's posting privileges for unleashing undeath upon the hapless citizens of the official WoW forums. Beware temptation to turn to the dark side. Post in living threads only.
A good guideline to go by is that if the most recent post in a thread is over a month old then it would be better not to reply to that thread.
Filed under: Humor






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tormented909 Sep 16th 2007 2:08PM
is this not the most BS thing ever?
rick gregory Sep 16th 2007 2:11PM
So they let people act like undisciplined monkeys on crack normally, but if you search, find a relevant thread and ask a question you might get banned?
Sigh
baudkarma Sep 16th 2007 2:23PM
Far better to start a brand-new thread on the exact same topic, so that all the old questions and answers and jokes and comments can be recycled.
Gurei Sep 16th 2007 2:40PM
Blizz is run by 4 year old?
IDK,atleast 4 year old dont waste their time on silly things and have fun,these is just silly and retarded.
Why not punsh trolls ,or those that constantly go to a certain clas forum to with nerf crys or whatever.
And who decided that these was wrong? it might be against conduct but is it against the rules?
Obiter Sep 16th 2007 2:53PM
Wow -- is WoW fun for anyone any more? Its all so tightly controlled that its losing a lot of its joy. I think Blizz is so scared of losing its golden goose that its getting too conservative at exactly the moment the game needs a serious gameplay refresh.
lori Sep 16th 2007 3:11PM
So why not autodelete everything over a month old?
xzor Sep 16th 2007 4:30PM
whew, its a good thing the forums are safe once more, now that people get suspended for posting on old topics.
Fletch Sep 16th 2007 5:03PM
Maybe they should consider auto-locking every thread that hasn't been posted in for over a month?
G Sep 16th 2007 5:44PM
Fletch and Lori have the right idea. Kyzoc is out of line here. I've run online forums since 1995 and never had to enforce a rule like that. If they have a good reason, then they should be auto-locking the topics. It is their own forum software, after all.
Blizzard seems to be hiring more support people lately. That's good in theory, but some things are also getting out of hand. I had a GM ticket answered in the middle of a boss fight in Arc the other night. By the time the fight ended and I read my chat log, the guy had threatened to kick me out of the instance if I didn't reply immediately. This couldn't have been more than 60 seconds, after I had waited 2 hours for a response. I replied quickly, but he had closed that magical GM pipeline already, so I had to explain to my party that I might 'disappear' at any time (luckily, I didn't). Being accustomed to extremely friendly GM conversations, this was surprising to say the least.
PeeWee Sep 16th 2007 7:20PM
Blizzard, ever heard of "auto-pruning"? Even a free forum-engine like phpbb has that. What's the use of old threads in the first place if we're not allowed to reply in them?
Heh, I'd like to see Blizzard use phpbb, it'd be hacked to pieces in a heartbeat *giggle*
Matt Sep 17th 2007 12:57AM
Clatu Verata Nikt(cough)
Alright, I said the words!
Bob Sep 17th 2007 2:34AM
Et tu blizzard?
spritzup Sep 17th 2007 7:45AM
I was suspended for doing this... 3 days if I remember right. I was searching for a thread I'd posted in and came across another character with the same name as me. I posted remarking on that (not paying attention to the date of the last post) and got banned. Now the funny thing is that this search result came up in the top 3, so it was an honest mistake.
I don't hold it against blizzard, I used to hate thread necromancy when I moderated forums so I know where they're coming from, however they may need to re-vamp the forum search tool a bit.
Juliah Sep 17th 2007 5:47PM
I've been a forum moderator for a gaming company, and a moderator for several personal forums, and I think this is idiotic.
I'd much rather have someone look up an old thread and check for information on it (and add a post, if needed, for clarification), than just add to the existing clutter by posting afresh. I don't even mind if they're posting for fun, as long as they're not trolling/spamming.
Can Blizzard make any sort of legitimate, logical case as to why it's bad to post in an old thread?
*boggles*