Highlighting Zombie threads

Also the 'Great emoji debate' where we were told they could be got rid of of need be but nothing happened there either.

But I still think a Like button is not far away.

We keep being told that 'things are being looked into' and 'we'll hear back soon'.

Then a few months goes by and we have this whole thing again.

Be honest, HQ, you're just going to keep fobbing everyone off, aren't you?

You've been 'looking into' the zombie issue AND the 'user123456' things for a long old time now...

And here we have a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD thread that has been resurrected FFS.......come on MNHQ, please lock old threads!!

Brilliant! (Assuming the decision is to sort it out)

A thread from 2007 about sacking her husband's carer with absolutely no context Sparkling

What's that one about sooty?

And another absolutely pointless one has just been dragged up.

They should put it to a vote.

All that needs to happen is that threads are locked after a certain amount of time.
I completely agree that if you are searching for an answer to certain problems then many old threads can be useful.
However why not just put something at the bottom saying 'this thread is over 3 months old. If you want to discuss this topic then feel free to start a new thread.'

Us old MNers (I name change frequently) welcome newbies but I am getting very pissed off with the tone from HQ that the newbies are more important that the old guard.

Totally agree Empress but there is definite resistance to doing anything about it. There must be a good reason-maybe one we don't know about? Not sure.

How have HQ garnered that newbies are put off by the zombie warning?

And what about what the regulars think??

But they need to balance all that against overall user experience. Just going for clicks at any price isn't going to benefit them long term.

I agree it may be all about the clicks/advertising revenue. Doesn't matter what people are clicking on just that they are clicking. If it's a bunfight from ten years ago then so be it.

I think AIBU should be the same as Chat and disappear after 3 months.

and now a zombie thread is in discussions of the day (the woman shut my car door one). Really unhelpful .

I'm guessing that a lot of people who search random things on google end up getting linked to old threads, then they sign up and respond to it -
this is presumably a useful source of membership/pageviews (ergo revenue) for mumsnet. But it these people see the zombie warning, then they realise that responding to the topic is fruitless and they close the page, which is obviously BAD for mumsnet (financially speaking).

Money talks.

Another vote here for bringing back the Zombie Thread warning. It's so frustrating, and makes MN less relevant.

And the Saniflo zombie thread was resurrected on purpose by someone who obviously thought it was the best way to get a response.

A helpful note at the top might have shown them they'd get better results from starting a new thread.

There is a zombie thread about saniflo toilets in Active conversations at this very moment. I was hoping for drama with the upstairs neighbour but it's OLD. And I didn't realise until I got the end of the thread.

Can we please have a warning at the TOP when a zombie thread is resurrected. So annoying to get to through the whole thread before realising it's a zombie.

What's wrong with zombie threads? Well, in almost every case threads quickly become irrelevant or outdated.

No point offering advice on weaning to a poster whose kid is now heading off to secondary school, for example. Some of the threads I've seen recently re-animated are asking about visas or other legal advice (and at least I can understand how posters come across them from search engine results), but the law changes and getting five year old information is probably worse than having no information at all.

Though does anyone else remember the zombie thread asking for experience of a particular buggy? IIRC the OP was considering purchasing Model X, and after a few favourable reviews concluded that she would go ahead and buy it. Then many years down the line, she posted on her own zombie thread without realising words to the effect of "Hey OP, I've had one of these for ages now and I really recommend it too!"

I agree BIWI, and I still want to know where the newbies said it was off-putting...

Well whilst that's very good to hear, Lou, about MN being for all users, but Lorna's post didn't suggest that, did it?

We totally understand your concerns, however, we actually changed our zombie alert a while back as it was quite off-putting for new users!

Thanks Sparklingbrook I just laughed so much I cried into my coffee. I have a long day of crawling on my belly in the loft for my latest renovation and this helped wake me up.

I might become the necromancer of MN if all zombie threads are that good.