Zombie threads - can we label them?

[Vroomfondleswaistcoat]

I know this has been raised before but is there any way to have a thread labelled as 'zombie' after, say, six months or more with no further posts? We've just had a thread resurrected by someone who left the comment 'Hi', I suspect deliberately to get the thread back on the 'current' list, and people are wasting their time giving advice on a thread that's been dormant for a year.

If a thread coming back - after all, a poster might want to reopen their old thread - could somehow be labelled so that posters know what they are looking at, it might be helpful.

Hello @Vroomfondleswaistcoat currently, there's a note on zombie threads that alerts a poster that the thread is old, which says: Heads up - this thread has not been posted on in a while. Why not start a new thread instead?

Not everyone may notice it (or is put off if they do) and so we understand it's annoying sometimes when zombies are reanimated. There are occasions, as you note, where people come back to update threads and others where people find threads, e.g. from a Google search that are relevant to them.

We'll certainly discuss your feedback - the easiest thing to do for now is to report such threads to us. We can either close them or pin a post at the top to warn posters. Thank you.

Well I didn't remember seeing any notification about it being a zombie thread, and I've just come away from an eight year old thread (about putting a glass wall on top of a brick one in a second floor flat) and there was NO zombie warning on that one whatsoever. In fact I wouldn't even have noticed the date except that the last poster pointed out that the matter was probably resolved after eight years.

So are the zombie warnings only occasional?

And again - this thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/style_and_beauty/1213148-Any-recommendations-on-shapewear

It has a comment as someone has added to it, but no zombie warnings (not that it's particularly important in this instance. but surely the zombie warning should be ubiquitous?)

There used to be an actual zombie so that if it was reanimated, the next few posters could just leave it.

To be fair, some threads do age better than others - and don't really go out of date.

If it's a parent asking for info and advice about weaning, the thread can be of use in perpetuity for others - even after the actual OP has long passed the weaning stage.

If it's speculation about what will happen in the country once the Queen (as in Elizabeth II) dies, it's probably pointless continuing with the thread!

I agree it is annoying I have brought it up in the past too.
The problem with the warning at the end of the thread ( just above the text box ) is that we don't see it until we have read all the posts, particularly if like me you choose to 'show all' rather that 25 / 50 post per page.
Also obviously not everyone reads the whole thread before posting.

I think a warning under or above the ops 1st post , or a different colour / boarder would be better , though this would have to be promoted a lot otherwise you'd get lots of threads saying why is this different.

I don't want old threads removing or locking , as pp said they can still be very useful.

Or we could just have this at the top of the page

the notification is a bit pathetic, tbh.

I would suggest closing a Zombie thread to new posts, automatically 6 months or one year after the last post made. And a suggestion to start a new thread if the topic is interesting or current?

I'm sure it's not beyond the bounds of possiblity to close the thread to new posts, but leave the ability for one reply that creates a new thread and automatically includes a link to the old one?

I would just include the zombie warning for longer - at the moment I think it stays for the first ~2 replies. Which means if a spammer resurrects it and then one person replies in error (or to point out that it's a spam reply) then the warning is gone.

The OP could be shaded in a different colour with a warning about the age of the thread, kind of like the Guardian does for old articles e.g. this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/fake-cures-autism-prove-deadly

but i thought MN didn't really like them being resurrected either? so it would be in their interests to make a user friendly way of stopping that?

Sometimes I think it's fine/makes sense. I don't think MN particularly mind either way. The only reason the warning came in in the first place was because users complained about it.