@11dustyattic,
It is frustrating for people coming to these boards for current information and help, to find an old thread with outdated information near the top of the board, looking as though it's relevant and current.
Every time that someone posts in an old thread, it brings that old thread to the fore. I realise that it happens with the poster often apparently unaware of the thread's date and its obsolete content. That unawareness appears to be the result of someone typing a question into the Discussion Boards' search field (Ask a question), whereupon the forum's software offers up suggested topics without any indication of how old the topics are.
However... the posts in the thread do not have their dates removed. The posters are not unable to see the thread's starting date; equally they are not unable to see the date of the last post in the thread. It appears that the posters simply don't pay attention to that information.
The result is an old irrelevant thread rises to the top and appears to be new and relevant. Responders on these boards duly open the thread, thinking it must be a new thread, only to realise that - no, it's a zombie thread. Newcomers to these boards read the thread and may post on it, giving it additional appearance of newness and relevance. These threads waste people's time, create misunderstanding and confusion (because of the out-of-date and often incorrect information), and divert attention from the actual up-to-date threads covering much the same topic (except that they are CURRENT threads).
Small wonder that the responders / regular posters become frustrated by this. It seems that someone must reply to the most recent posts in zombie threads where such posts seem muddled and appear to be correcting erroneous information - because the information given in the past isn't meant to be future-proof! (It can't be. In the situation of quoting eBay policy alone, those policies never stay still and their wording changes all the time.)
I'm more in favour of giving old threads a quick "Dead thread" response, including an image which drives home the message that it's dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. (Unfortunately the moderators whose job it is to run these forums do not lock old outdated threads, and the risk of a regurgitated and moth-eaten old thread getting a new reply from a new or fairly new poster on these boards is ever-present.)
I don't think it's appropriate to suggest that a poster who has long tried to correct erroneous impressions on zombie threads should "get a life". Unlike this thread (which is dead), I imagine that davewil, for instance, does have a life...
... and now it's time to put this poor thread back into its dark earthy grave, there to moulder in (hopefully) eternal rest...
