Zombie threads - would it be an idea to lock a thread after a time?

[BerylStreep]

I've noticed quite a few of the threads I'm on are reanimated zombie threads. I've one that popped up from 2012. I've particularly noticed them being reanimated by spammers.

On other sites you very often see a message at the bottom saying 'this thread is closed to new posts'.

Is it something you would consider MNHQ? I suppose one reason not to is that the op might come back to update at a later time, so perhaps a solution is that the only person who can reanimate after say, 12 months, is the op.

What do you think?

[LornaMumsnet]

Hi there OP,

Thanks for getting in touch about this. We recently added a warning in the message box of zombie threads to warn posters that they would be reactivating a zombie - do you feel that this isn't working as well as it should?

We're always happy to discuss suggestions, though. We'll flag this up to the bosses next week.

[PanPanPanPing]

Once upon a time, old threads had a reasonable visible zombie warning - although once a few people had posted on the old thread, the warning disappeared.

Then MNHQ decided to get rid of the visible zombie warning. So now it's got even worse.

Check out some of these threads on Site Stuff about zombie warnings www.mumsnet.com/SearchArch?mustmatch=zombie+thread+warning&dontmatch=&nickname=&src_displ_option=s_m_d_m&fromDate=&toDate=&topicmode=chs&chosentops=1374

[PanPanPanPing]

um ... reasonably visible ..

[BerylStreep]

I think the zombie warning only appears to the first poster to post after a while. Once it has been resurrected the warning goes. You get lots of eagle eyed posters warning ZOMBIE, but then there are always a few souls not me, definitely not me who post without realising the thread is so old.

It's especially annoying when it's spammers resurrecting them, although I suppose you get spammers regardless.