Submitted 16 hours ago by sk1nnym1ke@piefed.social to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
I’ve come across an interesting question on the threadiverse that was asked two years ago and still hasn’t been answered.
What do you all think is an acceptable time frame for responding to unanswered posts?
Is there a general rule for when it’s too late to give an answer?
Even if it won’t help the original poster. Someone else will come across the answer via Google search.
Nothing worse than googling for an issue, just to find that someone had the exact problem and no one answered, or the OP goes “figured it out” without providing an answer lol
You have a really good argument.
The search thing is less relevant to Google as Google pretty much relies on Reddit for that, but still a good point.
I will help where I can, for the same reason.
The problem with “necroposting” in a forum is that it bumps the topic to the top as if its new again, some people think its actually new, and it usually starts the whole discussion over again, stealing attention from topics that are actually new and relevant. That’s why people hate it.
It doesn’t work like that on the threadiverse. The only person who gets notified is the person whose post you are replying to. It does not get “brought back to the top”. It only exists if someone searches for it, and that doesn’t trigger the same “viral” flood of comments as it does from being bumped to the top of a forum.
Some people don’t understand the distinction, and have evolved their habits in forums that frown on such things, so they continue to frown on it here without thinking about why they hate it so much. They will still hate it if you do it to their posts, and that’s perfectly valid for them to feel that way, even I feel that way sometimes, but you don’t have to abide by their rules. In summary, fuck the haters, necro everything, at worst you’re simply leaving your wisdom for some future searcher.
For answering a question, no limit on elapsed time, as long as you answer can actually be helpful.
Unlike reddit where the turnover of content is very quick (i.e. don’t bother commenting on a popular post if it’s more than 2 hours old), lemmy/piefed is slower and a lot of people still sort feeds by active and scaled. So commenting on a very old post can very well still be noticed by other people, let alone the person who posted it.
I submitted a song that I couldn't find the name of a long time ago in hopes that someone could ID it. About 15 years later, someone replied with the name of the song. It definitely brightened my day to have a nice surprise like that.
Context.
Some obscure question that’s been unanswered for months?
Sure, why not.
A political article that’s a couple days old and has a shit ton of comments tho… Yeah, it’s weird for people to jump back into those.
But the absolute worst that will happen is someone down votes and blocks you. Most likely they ignore it, maybe ask what you’re doing
It’s not a big deal.
I imagine a lot of those ones with shit tons of comments from a couple days old are just people who are sorted by active instead of hot, so it keeps them at the top of their feed when they log in. Then you find pinned comments at the top of subs, which someone may accidentally respond to even if they are sorted by something else.
I figure so long as they are trying to answer a question, and not criticize someone’s point, should be fine.
Its only weird if its an hour old account commenting on a 7 day post with bad faith arguments and whataboutisms, or randomly accusing the OP/commenters of dubious claims like “GENOCIDE SUPPORTER” or “PEDOPHILE”. (I saw a new obvious alt replying to a 5 month post for no reason lol, browse the modlogs… its fun)
If it’s a technical issue, go ahead and answer it if you think your answer will help someone in the future. Someone may be having that exact problem and have found the post via search. This has helped me more times than I can count when working on projects.
Non technical topics, depends on the platform and subject. I’d say use your own judgment.
It was not a technical issue.
A teacher asked how she can help her adhd students.
My opinion, that would fall under technical. Your reply might not be useful to that teacher or the student that she was trying to help, but might be useful to the next teacher or student that runs across the post.
In all my years I have never found anything as poorly documented as how people’s minds work.
Not to me man. Sure no one but the OP will see it but who cares im not here to posture.
Whatever timeframe I’d reasonably expect people to read and respond to my comment. For Lemmy, I’d put that at a day.
I generally look for posts:
Never
I still get replies to questions I asked on reddit most of a decade ago that never got fully answered, and I really appreciate the people that make that effort.
Didn’t reddit have a rule that old posts cannot be answered and are automatically archived after a set time?
I think that arose at some point but I to had commented on very old reddit posts. in the early 20teens.
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 15 hours ago
ive gotten replies on shit after years... im always pleasantly surprised
i say go for it, always
MelonYellow@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
Yeah, plus new comments don’t bump the thread up. Well if it’s a dead thread. Comment away!