To wonder why people up old threads

[Myowncampervan]

By old, I don’t mean proper zombie threads from years (and even decades) ago. I mean ones that are fairly recentish - anything from two weeks to eight months or so - but they just reply ‘normally.’

Why? Does anyone understand? It’s recently happened to me - thread was six months old and I was heavily pregnant in the summer with a two year old. I now have a three year old, it’s midwinter and the baby inside me is about to be weaned into solids!

I imagine they search for something, and don't realise how old the thread is.
Hardly big deal?

Same reason as they post on the really old ones - they don't look at the date on the OP, they barely look at the date on the last post on the thread, and just respond as if it had been posted moments ago.

Most people read the OP and then reply, many think they have hit reply at the bottom of the OP so thats where their reply will go and don't realise theres x pages of thread they haven't read and things have moved on.

There is also the issue that the forum now serves up 'posts similiar to this' at the bottom and many people don't realise they may be very out of date.

I feel like its the equivalent of being in the pub, hearing the opening of a conversation... then going out for a curry and coming back next friday and barging in with an opinion based on the original conversation. You just wouldn't do that!

Yes it’s weird someone did it with a thread about hair colour from the summer and just commented to say “strawberry blonde” thread was 4/5 months old 🤷‍♀️thread had already had countless comments just seemed odd to bump it from the summer

My MN has developed a new feature/glitch where when internet is patchy, it loads a version of Active or TIO from a time when it remembers reliable internet. It can be from days, weeks or months ago. Looks no different to Current Mumsnet either. Just every thread is from that day's active conversations.

I’ve noticed recently that when I scroll to the end of a thread on my phone, I get a ‘similar threads’ section which shows posts like you describe which are related to that thread. Sometimes it shows ‘trending’, maybe it’s causing confusion with some posters who think it’s a current post?

Ah that’s interesting @ShowOfHands

It did baffle me when mine was upped!

I have posted by accident on the 'similar to this' threads. It's ok though to post on a telly addicts thread that is a bit out of date as people watch programmes at different times so you wouldn't want umpteen threads about the same series so I always check if there is a thread even if its a couple of weeks old

Sometimes I’ve noticed they are looking for a rant and searching for that topic. Like they’ll bump an old thread about bad service in M&S just to add ‘I TOO HAD BAD SERVICE IN M&S…’ and launch into their Google review.

Maybe for the same reason people say 'up' rather than bump.

I've commented a few old threads lately. The ones you give 'advice' on. Only to realise a second later that its an old thread that somebody else has recently commented on. I've not searched for it, it's just come up on the main page. I feel like an idiot and it drives me crackers.

Search engine. Either Google or whatever, or MN's own 'advanced search' which doesn't seem to put hits with the most recent first, but at random.

I just did a test advanced search for a random gardening term, and the first MN thread to come up was dated in 2017. The second one was July last year, then 2018, then 2016, then July last year again. You specifically have to choose 'most recent first' after the hits have come up, but a lot of people might just click on the first thread.

The weird thing about the recent one was it was a regular poster who had commented on the thread when I first started it. That’s not the only case - I get searching through google, it’s just odd when someone posts about recipe ideas for a birthday lunch in September and someone chimes in three months later with suggestions!

I get confused when one appears on TIO and I can't even remember posting on it

I think the increase in this happening is definitely related to the "similar threads" feature towards the bottom of pages. Silly feature imo. MN should maybe somehow highlight the date the OP posted, similar to the warning they give on zombie threads.

One got resurrected recently where the OP was after advice trying to wake her 17 year old up for school. Said 17 year old is now in their 30s and I think she said he had kids of his own!

It's perfectly possible on most forum software to do things like auto lock threads once they're over a certain age, or highlight them a different colour that people would notice, or have a pop up come up before a post is sent saying 'are you sure, no ones posted on this thread since xxxx'...

MN haven't done this, I assume there is a reason they like people being able to re-up zombie threads.

I've done it by accident. Simply reading through a thread not realizing it was ages old!