I just read a closed post in which a user was asking if “necro” posting was against the rules. He was referred to the EVE Forum Rules of Conduct, particularly the entry that prohibits “bumping”.
The problem is, the Rules of Conduct don’t explain what “bumping” is. I’m not trying to be pedantic and demand that everything be spelled out, but the flip side of that is that, when you use slang terms, there is ambiguity.
“Bumping” and “Necroing” are not commonly understood to be the same things. “Necroing” is not “bumping”, nor is it a form of same.
“Bumping” is commonly referred to a poster, usually the original poster, adding trivial content to a thread for the purpose of raising it to the top of the list of threads.
“Necroing” is commonly identified as adding to a thread that has not had a comment for a significant period of time.
As far as I am concerned, “bumping” is a waste of everyone’s time, similar to “spamming”.
But as a curator of information, I have never understood the opposition to necroing. In general, we always want information collected and centralized. If the discussion already exists, why start a new topic? Just so people can re-hash the same discussions again? If we discourage people from necro-posting, how can we then have the moral grounds to encourage them to use the search feature to seek answers to their questions, if they can’t comment on older threads?
To me, the community is better served with one thread per subject rather than 10.
In any case, I’d like to know, definitively, if “necroing” is considered “bumping” and by extension against the Code of Conduct, as previous discussion on the matter seemed to suggest this, but not conclusively.