Rethinking the "Necro-posting" Rule for Feedback + Suggestions

Or just make a new post about the same issue. Maybe even reference the post in the discussion.

Instead of bringing up and age old post that hasn’t been talked about out. Just start a new threat. I always wonder why people do this.

I do think a more flexible common sense approach should be applied here. Mods are only doing as asked but most of them are knowledgeable enough to know when a topic is still relevant to the game currently. So I do think Rare should give them a little more leeway to make that judgement call. If something is out-dated or an issue no longer in the game, sure, it probably should be locked.

In the Game Announcements & Troubleshooting subforum especially, it seems rather daft that "necro-ing" is even a thing. If a problem is still a problem, there should be scope to discuss it. Especially as a lot of the time it's tech issues and those can be hard to diagnose, so often a solution may be found months or even years later.

I've never been on a forum like this, I've been on a few gaming ones over the years, and I used to moderate for a couple of music tech ones back in mid 00s. Every single one of your points is very accurate, in my opinion.

Big upvote.

I think the biggest problems with the necro rules are...

1). 30 days isn't long enough.

2). If the rules are the rules, why not automatically lock threads that fall into that rule bucket to prevent necro'ing? If you're going to just lock the thread as soon as it's resurrected without acknowledging that the resurrection falls into the context of the first rule of thread bumping, then it should just be automated to begin with.

The first rule of thread bumping reads as:

Bumping threads with content that is not providing additional information to the original post is not permitted.

That literally happens all the time and the thread gets locked anyways simply because it's been greater than 30 days since the last post.

@RealStyli 's notion of "common sense" would go a long way as it pertains to necro'ing threads.

I've never been on a forum like this

Been on hundreds since Xbox came on line and was only means to talk among your friends or discuss.
Necro topics has always been a thing and frowned upon

Even topics that have been solved or have no merit anymore but maybe the old bug appeared. No need to post on a 2 year old post to say “I’ve encounter this bug” again

Or even to simply join a topic that has already moved on from. That is madness…that like visiting an old building the use to host parties back in the 80s and nobody visits. Because the parties have moved on to better or gotten bigger.

Anyways that it. Just don’t do it and always start your original post with links to the old. You can edit your posts (another feature players can’t seem to figure out)

@burnbacon said in Rethinking the "Necro-posting" Rule for Feedback + Suggestions:

I've never been on a forum like this

Been on hundreds since Xbox came on line and was only means to talk among your friends or discuss.

Did you miss the "I" in my sentence you quoted without tagging me because you know that would draw attention and notify me? And did you miss the part where I moderated on some music tech ones?

In any case, we've moved on from that and the OP has made great points about this specific rule and why it's not productive.

Necro topics has always been a thing and frowned upon

I specifically brought up the tech issues threads, because generally on forums they are only locked once a solution is found. If a solution isn't found, they are left open unless other rules are broken.

Even topics that have been solved or have no merit anymore but maybe the old bug appeared. No need to post on a 2 year old post to say “I’ve encounter this bug” again

Going back to the OP, yes, there is a need. It keeps all relevant information in one place, rather than fragmented. You end up with users reposting the same information that had already been discussed.

Or even to simply join a topic that has already moved on from. That is madness…that like visiting an old building the use to host parties back in the 80s and nobody visits. Because the parties have moved on to better or gotten bigger.

If a discussion goes off-topic, there are already other rules that cover that. Mods can give a warning to keep on-topic. If it continues to wander off, then lock it. This is already done in threads that don't keep course.

Anyways that it. Just don’t do it and always start your original post with links to the old. You can edit your posts (another feature players can’t seem to figure out)

You CANNOT link to old posts, that is considered necroing as well. I know this because I got a slap for it before and had a post mod-edited and my links removed. I had to edit and repost the entire text again.

@mopwieldinghedgehog said in Rethinking the "Necro-posting" Rule for Feedback + Suggestions:

Tech issues is being mentioned a few times here. If we're talking troubleshooting and/or bug reports, those are best handled by filing a ticket to support. For two reasons. Firstly, when it comes to troubleshooting, it is very likely support has some proper suggestions and can quickly be alerted to something being a new or different issue. Secondly, tickets are a lot easier to track and thus makes for a better way to assess how widespread an issue/bug is and gather relevant information around it (is it for example only happening for players on a specific platform, players with a specific hardware, clips and timestamps for bugs etc).

Without input from tech support and QA, it's hard to tell if this is true. It seems to me that that crowd resourcing is far more useful to diagnosing an issue. When players can bounce ideas off each other, that leads to problems being found faster. Tickets are useful, but we're not privy to what has already been submitted as a bug.

While support may have suggestions, previous experience has shown that the playerbase often finds workarounds to issues before Rare's Support. And in some instances, Rare's suggestions are out-dated. This is not a knock on Rare, it's difficult to update support articles regularly.

As for feedback and discussions in general - these are gathered from this space and quite honestly, having the 30 day rule makes that job easier on us. The merchant threads mentioned are mentioned as being something negative due to quantity over time - to us that is clearer data than if there was just one single thread. Not just because it helps signal frequency more clearly but also because it tells us that this is relevant to people. Sometimes folks will comment in a thread just because it's there, not because it's really something that is important to them personally. If that makes sense.

I would think that's the purpose of upvotes. But it's hard to measure those when they're spread across multiple threads and the same idea is upvoted multiple times by the same people. Keeping the number of threads lower, and with upvotes limited to one-per-user, is a better indication if an idea is actually popular.

@littlelungzz591

Guy is just following the rulebook as a mod. Until the Rare team changes an ancient text of forum posting rule that's been around for years. Mods are just doing there jobs.,

I've literally never understood what the problem is with "necro-posting" tbh.

I have to wonder.
Why do people hate making new topics on a matter that may have happened years ago but prefer to comment on the age-old topic instead?
I know a lot of us don't really like starting our personal topics for reasons, but still. What's the reason behind that?

Prefer to dig up a dead body from a serial killer, and say, "Yeah, this guy killed those people and then some, and I have proof," So cops show up looking at you. "Umm, yeah, we already know. Why don't you just file a report? and will reopen the investigation."

@burnbacon said in Rethinking the "Necro-posting" Rule for Feedback + Suggestions:

I have to wonder.
Why do people hate making new topics on a matter that may have happened years ago but prefer to comment on the age-old topic instead?
I know a lot of us don't really like starting our personal topics for reasons, but still. What's the reason behind that?

The OP has covered the reasons. The same topics get made over and over. Closing them because of the necro rule leads to the same arguments being made again in each thread. They also posted a non-extensive list of many, many posts on the merchant crates.

It also leads to a situation where apathy on a topic sets in, because we've seen the same thing so many times. And it doesn't matter how much you like an idea, if it's the 100th time it's posted, you're not going to reiterate your feelings again... so those topics fade off faster each time, not because of a lack of support (they may have just as many upvotes as the first time) but because of a lack of interaction (replies).

Prefer to dig up a dead body from a serial killer, and say, "Yeah, this guy killed those people and then some, and I have proof," So cops show up looking at you. "Umm, yeah, we already know. Why don't you just file a report? and will reopen the investigation."

How is this in any way a good analogy? If the case is closed there is nothing more to add, sure, but clearly if people do have new information, they should be able to provide it to the original case regardless of timeframe, not a new one. And yes, cases get reopened when new information is found. Otherwise, you end up with duplicate case files on the same murder....

... or tying it back to reality: multiple posts on the same topic, with the same responses.

@mopwieldinghedgehog said in Rethinking the "Necro-posting" Rule for Feedback + Suggestions:

Good quality discussions can in theory be ongoing for years as long as the thread with the discussion is actually actively being engaged with. Not a single post for 30+ days isn't what I'd label as an 'active discussion'.

"Active" in these instances is subjective. Is the topic still relevant to the current build of the game? Is the problem still in the game? Has a solution or workaround been found?

That would surely depend on the topic being discussed?

The reason I keep bringing up tech issues is that they can take a long time to diagnose and find solutions to. Just because no-one is actively discussing it, doesn't mean it's solved. But someone might find a solution a few months later and respond. The thread gets locked for being a necro before anyone else can comment to say whether it worked for them or not. This kills off any back and forth, and the ability to crowd source a solution.

An example of this was the issues I posted about Gaming Features not working on Xbox Game Bar (which affected GameDVR and Looking For Group in Sea of Thieves, specifically). That thread lasted a long time with folks trying to find the cause and a solution. But things didn't change for months, there was no progress, so no-one responded as there was no new information. Until one person bumped it to ask if a solution was found. It got locked immediately, and I had to create a separate thread to detail that it was still an ongoing problem and the workarounds I found (I switched to using Steam for GameDVR). AFAIK, that issue was never fixed.

As for feedback/suggestions threads, they fall off for reasons I've already mentioned. Apathy around certain topics sets in after the Nth time seeing them, so they don't garner the same amount of replies.

Further, in order to keep a thread active, there's a meta of always putting in something that people object to... because that encourages replies and keeps the thread visible for longer (light "rage-baiting"). Upvoting doesn't keep threads alive. So, even if a topic is popular enough to get a healthy amount of upvotes, it can die off quickly if folks don't feel like they need to add to it. I've had this happen multiple times when I have an idea that gets a lot of upvotes but no-one replies, as there's nothing to add. So it falls off the first page in a day, until someone finds it randomly and "necros" it... then, locked. Every time this has happened, new folks saw the OP and I get more upvotes, but the thread is locked.

This is why when the "add old hitmarker" threads appeared, you saw a bunch of accounts come out of the woodwork to both upvote and reply with short responses ("I agree", etc..), because they knew how to game the system and keep those threads alive.

As for feedback - firstly feedback is gathered regardless of how many posts a thread has. Secondly - the only measure for 'good or bad' feedback is whether or not it's constructive. Feedback such as 'Fix game' isn't really something that can be collected further than 'player is generally unhappy'. Now had it had some detail 'issue/problem is x and it is annoying the heck out of me because it ruins y' it's a different story.

The problem is those "fix game" threads tend to stay around longer, because of the reason I mentioned above: it gets people to reply, even if they don't agree or upvote. It just riles people up. If they don't actually provide any constructive feedback on a specific problem, then there is already scope to lock them and point them at Support for bug reporting.

@mopwieldinghedgehog said in Rethinking the "Necro-posting" Rule for Feedback + Suggestions:

@realstyli Regarding the bring old hitmarker threads back, I have to disagree. That appeared more as brigading/boosting than as genuine feedback. Not just based on the one-liners.

I mean, I don't think we're on opposite sides of the fence here. I just mean they knew upvotes alone weren't sufficient to keep the topic active and visible. I certainly have theories about what happened there, but throwing those out without proof wouldn't be constructive.

Personally I find the grievance people have against necroing a post that is just as valid as a forum topic as if the same thing was made brand new. There is literally no reason to deem a post too old to be relevant just for not being interacted in over a month if the subject goes unchanged.

It seems like something people just decided to make a rule unanimously on forums without any consideration that an old topic is not always irrelevant, and no one is hurt, nor does it cause issue for the actual website. Its just a grievance people have about a literal non issue across the internet that is easily accidentally done if not sorting by new.

@mopwieldinghedgehog said in Rethinking the "Necro-posting" Rule for Feedback + Suggestions:

Tech issues is being mentioned a few times here. If we're talking troubleshooting and/or bug reports, those are best handled by filing a ticket to support. For two reasons. Firstly, when it comes to troubleshooting, it is very likely support has some proper suggestions and can quickly be alerted to something being a new or different issue. Secondly, tickets are a lot easier to track and thus makes for a better way to assess how widespread an issue/bug is and gather relevant information around it (is it for example only happening for players on a specific platform, players with a specific hardware, clips and timestamps for bugs etc).

As for feedback and discussions in general - these are gathered from this space and quite honestly, having the 30 day rule makes that job easier on us. The merchant threads mentioned are mentioned as being something negative due to quantity over time - to us that is clearer data than if there was just one single thread. Not just because it helps signal frequency more clearly but also because it tells us that this is relevant to people. Sometimes folks will comment in a thread just because it's there, not because it's really something that is important to them personally. If that makes sense.

I would think a single thread with hundreds, or more people all agreeing to the one post would not be much harder to interpret the data of than hundreds of different posts making the same claim independently. Especially if the more active issues are always bumped to the most recent section of the forum.