Newton2.0
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Locking old threads so people don't reincarnate them.
I have often made this error and I do not wish to make it further. I assume others are the same re: beating dead chemical horses....
I just don't like playing necromancer with posts, especially if the topics aren't really going anywhere or are vacuous, etc...
I could absolutely police myself better, that's true.
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Texium
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Hmm let’s see, given there isn’t any option in the software to close threads automatically, we could make it the responsibility of the forum staff
to arbitrarily close threads of a certain age (which would be an impossible task considering the thousands of threads on this forum), or members could
just read the date of the post they’re replying to and think before they post, to make sure they aren’t trying to advise someone
who hasn’t visited the forum in over a decade.
Another reason to not close threads… we like to keep information as consolidated as possible here. It is unusual compared to other forums, yes, but
if you are going to post about a topic that has already been discussed, it is recommended that you seek out an existing thread to post it in,
acknowledging that you’ve done some research on the subject and are contributing something new. Or maybe you’ll find what you were looking for
along the way and decide you don’t need to post after all. On the other hand, replying to a 10 year old thread with an asinine one-liner is not
tolerated because it demonstrates that the poster is absolutely clueless.
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karlos³
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Pro-necroposting stance, definitely.
Pruning is neccessary though.
Damn, the pruning...
Necroposting at least hints at the poster possibly having read the thread he posts in.
Until you read it though, often at least.
In general its better, texium explained that well and I had typed something half-assed down and then went on to continue with some liquid extraction.
And when I came back he already posted this very well and thorough written explaination 
Nowadays, I rarely open a new thread regarding chemistry on here, because there are very few topic that are not touched or even mentioned at all on
here.
To give you an idea, I only opened each a topic, with own writeups, references etc, after I discovered that both "eschenmosers salt", and "sodium
diformylamide" were mentioned each just a single digit number of times on here at all, via google, not the internal search engine because that one is
actually less effective.
Else, I would have posted the same things in the thread in which this, or a related topic which is relevant to this is already discussed.
The stevens rearrangement stuff next door for example.
Information should be consolidated in scientific communities like this, and thus, necroposting might be unwanted elsewhere(where? I'm only in this
kind of forums, where is it unwanted?), but its important for boards like us.
You can see that(and I've seen you active there, you know what I mean) on the one or other chemistry related reddit community.
There, they ask the same over, and over again, its like the most common questions get asked at least every or every second month there.
Nobody searches out anything.
Nobody points to anything that confirms or denies whatever point was made.
Its endless reurgitation, like a cow with endless stomachs, getting to digest everything in regular intervals.... thats reddit!
Reddit is a fucking cow stomach! (ok I'm on drugs right now, admitted, that does not make it less true though)
We don't want a cow stomach.
I think it would taste significantly less good after being reurgitated for the 132th time.
Thats where the stale taste comes from, if you ever took a tiny bite of reddit.
It can very easily become poisonous, even toxic, too.
We do not cultivate such a stupid ADHD-approach.
Reddit was not even a brain fart in some, well, some ones mind, when this board already did the opposite of what that site increasingly does and
encourages.
Is there even a search function on reddit?
They do have such a feature automatically in use, like you describe OP, no?
I've seen that whenever I wanted to say someone who posted something two years ago that he is full of shit, that it was already closed for further
posts, too often.
Whats that good for and for whom?
Definitely not for the informations, maybe for the fragile poster but it does not help anything at all in spreading knowledge, even the opposite, of
course.
I mean, thats science and now, whatever, law documents.
Nothing is written in stone in science and everything needs to be able to be fought on openly when new facts are available and accepted.
Even whats "facts" need to be openly disputed all the time.
reddits not doing or helping anything in that regard.
What they do their, is designed to shut down discussion so their moderators(and in turn, legal responsibility for anything said thats not deemed
"nice" but hate), who are exploited by that site, can concentrate on the stuff that gives the most clicks at the current time.
Please lets not introduce anything that comes from there into this board, or that other board next door, thats the important difference between those
communities and our communities.
If I have posted something, interpreted it completely wrong, but ten years ago, then I want to be pointed at that to realise where I was wrong!
They don't.
There is a specific post which was the actual reason I registered there, which contained three significant fake informations, not sure if deliberately
or unknowingly faked, and that guy mentioned his own post in a scientific paper(of very low quality, literally just a unchecked literature reference
collection), the same person really, even hinted at that in a later post I saw on reddit...
I know it is not truthful, does not work as described, but I think that person did not know himself really.
Anyways, I only registered there to tell that person(but most importantly, all the others who praised that guy literally, not a single word of
critique at all), that he is full of shit.
I could not.
Whom did this help though?
He published that paper a year AFTER that.
That could have prevented, if that wouldn't have been turned off there.
Any half blind one eyed third-class lab chemist peer reviewing that shit would have noticed that immediately.
Oops, slightly drifted off topic 
Fuck I just re-read it.
Cow stomach...
Mhm.
No, that makes perfect sense (to me).
verrückt und wissenschaftlich
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macckone
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In this forum, it is appropriate to add to an existing thread.
I just responded to a post that had answers in two other threads along the same lines.
One of those would have absolutely answered the OPs original question.
I linked both relevant threads in the new thread.
You will find a lot of threads with a UTFSE and a link to the thread that answered the question here.
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karlos³
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Mood: oxazolidinic 8)
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Even better than our search engine is, to google it, but first put site:sciencemadness.org in the search bar, then followed by your search terms.
Downside is, this does not include the boards that can be accessed only when logged in, like the references board (or whimsy).
I find that immensely helpful, as it gives better results than TFSE of our board.
But I am sure it is already helpful.
[Edited on 12-12-2021 by karlos³]
verrückt und wissenschaftlich
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S.C. Wack
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Taking the React To Me bait, it seems that if one does not want a forum of shit threads, the most sensible way to approach this is by not creating
shit threads. Apparently all problems are solved by locking old threads instead of shit threads, because old=shit and new=not shit in this
post-sensibility world.
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phlogiston
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Its actually one of the nice things on this forum: if people are truly interested in a topic, they'll find the old threads about it, read them, and
then add to them if they can/want. That way, all contributions can be found in one place.
If that wouldn't be the norm, we'd continually be starting new threads about a few popular topics, and the interesting bits information would get
scattered across countless threads and become impossible to find.
The possible downside is that some threads have grown rather long, and some people may not bother reading them in their entirety before posting (even
though all of the really long threads are definitely worth your time reading them).
[Edited on 13-12-2021 by phlogiston]
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"If a rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down, that's not my concern said Wernher von Braun" - Tom Lehrer |
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Vomaturge
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I don’t get what’s wrong with “necro posting.” It doesn’t usually do any good to the original posters (who have moved on long ago) but
it’s more efficient than starting a whole new thread about the same tired topic. Not only does it lead to fewer threads to search through to find
any given thread, it also puts existing information there for new commenters to read.
I’m glad Texium isn’t listening to this suggestion, pretentious username or not. A tad surprised he didn’t put it all in forum matters or maybe
detritus.
I now have a YouTube channel. So far just electronics and basic High Voltage experimentation, but I'll hopefully have some chemistry videos soon. |
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j_sum1
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It comes fown to the purpose of the board.
If this was purely a socisl site then necroposting would be inappropriate since earlier contributors to a thread are unlikely to be around to give a
response.
But since the focus of the board is scientific content, then it is appropriate to keep all related content together.
Go join twitter if this policy bothers you.
I will put this in FM, but I think the topic is pretty much closed.
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j_sum1
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Thread Moved
13-12-2021 at 18:26 |
Texium
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I would have put it in Forum
Matters, but I didn’t notice where it was originally posted. I considered locking it outright, but I figured I’d let others say their piece and
drive the point home.
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teodor
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Probably there are good and bad cases of thread reincarnation. Newton2.0, you said, "I have often made this error and I do not wish to make it
further". So, please, clarify, which examples of "dead horses" do you mean and what do you consider as a bad practice.
In my understanding, posting meaningless messages in old threads is a bad habit.
Asking questions or sharing new results is a good practice here as well as generally in science. I think scientific knowledge has no "best before
date".
Some old threads became huge and only a few people can re-read and understand everything before posting questions. But I think the problem is the
absence of "summary", not a bad practice of new posters. Because in some threads there are a lot of interesting ideas to try but experimental results
are often missing. So, reincarnate an old thread with a new experimental result I consider as an example of good practice.
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