to wonder why people post on zombie threads ,seemingly at random.

[PollyPerky]

I don't understand this. genuine question. some posters find an old thread- assume through a search- and post their own experience which is sometimes only vaguely related to the original post ,and the last post might have been 3 years ago.

Why do they do this? Why don't they start a new thread if they want to say something? And it's never usually about asking for help, it's more often just 'me too'.

Haha I'm so used to seeing the name zombie in bold on here I did it without thinking!

In the grand scheme of things it's certainly not a major problem, it is just an irritation when, for example, someone comes on to add their tuppence worth of advice to someone's thread about a relationship or parenting problem, when the problem was happening about five years ago and has (one would hope…) been long resolved.

And then loads of other people don't realise it's a revived zombie thread and spend ages reading and doling out more pointless advice.

But then again, I'm sure a large proportion of advice given on mumsnet is completely ignored anyway, so it probably doesn't make that much difference.

The zombie warning should definitely stay on the thread longer than it does, but maybe the only answer is for all of us to get into the habit of looking at the date of the OP when we read a thread. I must say I do find it extremely irritating when someone answers an OP as if it's a current thread, when it hasn't been posted on for years. But then I'm a grumpy and intolerant old bag at the best of times.

{Evil twin me wants to wait until this thread is zombified and then reactivate it!}

Real me of course won't remember

I very nearly came a-cropperon on this lately and it was because I was googling a particular issue, looked at the date and forgot to look at the year. Thankfully the zombie warning caught my eye before I posted.

I think MN Towers should lock old threads or mention the zombie-ness at the top.

Perhaps people Google situations for eg whst to do about xyz and results return an example of a thread created by a poster with a simliar problem or question, and theyve not realised its been an old thread.

best one was when the original poster of an unanswered thread replied to it herself 3 years later without realising it was her thread in the first place

Haha!

I have been a culprit. I had just joined mn.

The most annoying one was about two weeks ago. I was so engrossed in the story then it turned out it was two years ago. I was pissed. Sometimes I don't even look at the date on the side until the end to find out when the last post was made.

best one was when the original poster of an unanswered thread replied to it herself 3 years later without realising it was her thread in the first place

That was so funny. It was something relatively minor in the overall scale of things that the OP was fretting about (think it might have been property/planning permission related) and wanted to know if anyone had any experience of how it might pan out in the end. The OP then responded to herself 3 years later, to say "About 3 years ago I was in that situation and had the same worries as you, but it all got resolved in the end, although I can't remember how, it was such a non-event".

Brilliant!

Neep that is so funny.

The one am thinking of is about a woman who left her husband and daughter then once he decided to go on holiday with his new girlfriend she decided to move back in. Then drama was pages and pages long. Someone then commented that this was resolved two years ago that's when I checked the date.

Maybe they genuinely can't see the ZOMBIE warning?
It's red and upper case so don't know why not.

The one I spotted today was posted on a health thread that is almost 2 years old and with no recent posts for about 18 months but the poster pops along to say' Ooooh, like you I have had this..'
and doesn't seem to see that the original and subsequent posters disappeared ages ago.

The zombie warning show up on the mobile site and then disappears after 5 or 6 new posts on the pc site.

Sorry that was supposed to say
"the zombie warning does not show up on the mobile site"

MN is so huge when one is new to it. Even after lurking for months I still probably posted first on a defunct thread; just hadn't grasped the concept of "Actives".