Duplicators vs Necromancers

theyekomzzz wrote: »

All ya'll that just complained about necro'ing.....guess what??? You just necro'd by talking about the necro......look I necro'd... Grow up.. when you google flying mount lvl 30...THIS IS THE """"FIRST""" link that pops up...natuarlly people are going to click it.......don't bother replying.... won't be back to check on this thread.....

I don't subscribe to theyekomzzz' 'like it or leave it' style of argument, but what is often seen as a creeping evil is in fact the normal state of affairs. Everyone that opens new threads is (usually, on other forums, and unhelpfully) told to go look it up or (more often here at PWI) given a link to the info. If you go look something up and what you need is not covered there, you have to post in the old post or make a whole new thread just for the one detail, which has no context and the whole of the information is therefore harder to assimilate. If you look things up on Google, or the internal search engine here, you will inevitably be directed to old threads. The evil Necro is a myth, and attempts to prevent it untenable. And finally, it takes up more storage space, which might well be a misguided concern of those crying, 'Necro!'

For example, searching Google for "Level 30 flying mount" gives this very thread at the very top.

And to put it another way, I am not the only one who sees this. Duplicate threads take up more space than long ones. Searching for "don't necro this thread" on Google may yield 457K results, most of them poor hits, but on the very first page alone are these comments:

"Necro posting is much better than creating a duplicate thread". The poll on the same page was 87.5% in favor of necros vs duplicate threads

"I think in general, if you want to resurrect an old thread, that's cool. I trot out the "Holy thread necro, Batman!" when someone necros a thread just to add some inane comment."

"Old Thread/Necro-Bumping Rule Seems Counter-Productive to Me"

and finally, advice I sincerely hope I will not have to take:
"You're going to get the Necromancer Card played no matter what. Ignore it"

Whoever first used the term "necro" may well have used it correctly. All I know is that everyone I have ever seen use it has used it incorrectly. It's never a mistake to correct information; most users who are using the Web at its most efficient come to forum posts via Google as well as Search.

There is one reason that comes close to using it. If the information in the old thread is obsolete, and someone comes along to correct it, then they are mistaken about history. But all that is required is to set them straight. The old and new info is then a record of the way it was, the change, and the new state of affairs.

The reasonable argument is now complete. The anti-troll minefield follows:
If seeing someone reply to something old bothers you, maybe you ought to think about why. If you are just a sheep following the herd and dittoing 'Necro' cause it makes you feel cool, BOO! I am real, and will only respond to reasoned argument. If you don't understand what I just wrote, don't concern yourself with it, I was not writing to you anyway.