Question about bumping old topics Options

[Guest_Vintorez_*]

Hi, I was just curious about the rule against reviving topics older than 2 weeks - I've never seen that rule at any of the other forums I visit (usually political forums). Usually the rule is once a specific post count is reached in a thread, it gets locked - not complaining, just wondering what the intent of the rule is.

[MARS]

Basically, when a thread hasn't been used for at least two weeks, the discussion is considered finished; i.e. nobody wants to/can provide any more opinions, commentary etc. that wouldn't be redundant. It's basically the point where most people are no longer interested in a topic because they've said all that had to be said. By then, the topic will naturally slide down the index and end up on the older pages. Reviving such a topic regardless is somewhat frowned upon UNLESS the post contains some legitimately new material worthy of further discussion. If it's just a generic 'I agree' kinda reply or downright spam, this is considered a thread-necro, an action that may result in a warning action upon repetition. The reason we do not simply auto-lock topics at a certain point is that most of our members refrain from pointless thread-necros for most of the time and because auto-locks would permanently disable a topic, thus eliminating the possibility of any legitimately new material being presented. Personally, I would find it quite jarring to have an interesting, lively discussion cut off just because post count X was reached or the discussion went on for a certain period of time consistently.