Implemented Suggestion: necroposting warning update ⚠️

[caraMel]

Hiiiiii
I'm here with a very short suggestion today.

Those of you who frequently play on the server may know that for some games, you will receive a warning reminding you that teaming is against the rules. This is one of very few server rules which are directly warned about BEFORE a player can break them. This makes sense; most rules are just a matter of 'common sense', it would become awfully cluttered if all rules needed 'pre'-warnings like this, and it's not even possible to do this for all rules anyways! Today, I'm going to be talking about one of these few rules which have such a mechanism to warn the user before they could potentially break it.

You may be familiar with the NECROPOSTING rule. As described in the official rules, this is: "replying to forum thread that hasn't had any new posts in the last 3 weeks in an attempt to revive them".
This rule has been enforced rather harshly in the last couple of years (in my experience, at least), however this is not reflected by the current warning given:

So what's the issue?

• Well firstly, this message makes no mention of the fact that necroposting is even against the rules. Yet, it feels like the perfect place to do so. Of course a user can go and read through all of the official rules until they get to the very bottom of the list where necroposting is listed and find out for themselves, but this is not something most people would bother with. I understand not wanting to read a detailed set of rules for EVERYTHING you do - this would become tiresome extremely quickly and most the time 'common sense' alone will be a good guide (this is just a fact - although the user would obviously be accountable for not doing so, there is still no harm in attempting to reduce the number of people breaking rules). This rule in particular is often not covered by common sense alone - I can say that I certainly wouldn't have thought of such a thing when I first encountered forums, so I think extra care should be taken to make it visible for newer users in a similar position.
• And secondly, its vagueness is misleading. Is it ok to reply to a thread from 3 years ago if I want to reply with my opinion? What is a response that is 'required'? And how can it be in-line with the definition given in the official rules (reminder: "replying to forum thread that hasn't had any new posts in the last 3 weeks in an attempt to revive them")? The lack of clear answer to these questions leads to unnecessary confusion.

First, we need to assume that the definition in the rules is the one actually used by moderators (which is not actually the case in my experience, but that's a different conversation). Assuming this, the warning should reflect this more directly and clearly in my opinion. Perhaps this can be achieved by including a simple statement like "Necroposting (replying to forum thread that hasn't had any new posts in the last 3 weeks in an attempt to revive them) is against our rules".

I don't believe that most users punished for necroposting are intentionally breaking the rules or even aware that what they are doing is an issue. Simply editing a warning could potentially lead to less users breaking the rules, marginally less work for mods, and create a more fair environment.

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear any of your thoughts on this in replies.
That's all from me for now - see y'all around!

 

[HoppyFrog]

I agree. I was warned for necroposting on a thread when I didn't even know it was a rule. I still don't really know everything about it. Stating that necroposting is a rule in the warning is such a small yet powerful change.

While there isn't an active Web Developer, this seems like an easy change that can be done by any Admin / Dev.

 

[Reesle]

One thing I always found odd about the necroposting rule is that it seemed no matter what anyone wrote in a necropost, whether it was useful to the conversation or not, it was an auto punishment. If this is the case, why allow us to post past 3 weeks at all if it’s going to be is an automatic punishment? Why not just lock the thread?

 

[Hoshi]

I fully agree with the suggestion. I think that necroposting shouldn't automatically result in a punishment: just like the actual warning suggests, any punishment should rather be context-based, rather than simply looking at the date it was posted and insta punish. Some comments genuinely add to the original post, and it's really easy to tell apart the messages that don't matter.

 

[Nightmare]

Yeah, i also managed to necropost on accident when i was new here because i thought as long as i contribute anything useful it is okay, so yeah some more clarity could help quite a bit preventing this

 

[Eli]

Hey, consider your suggestion implemented. We have updated the warning and increased the necroposting threshold to 30 days. We also simplified the rule and it now only applies to the Suggestions & Game Discussions subforums. The changes are reflected on our rules page as well. Thank you for your feedback!