Idea: Solution to Bumping

FloppyFish

So I have read the forum rules a couple of times and have heard of a common forum issue: Bumping.

Incase you didn't know, bumping is when someone posts on a thread that has not been active for a while, sometimes by accident, and sometimes to keep the thread on the front page. The forum rules talks about it.

So I was thinking of how this issue could be solved, and I had an idea: Threads that have not been active for a set period of time should automatically be closed to prevent people from bumping. I don't know how long this "set period of time" would be, maybe it could be for 3 days, a week, I don't know, not up to me to decide

Thanks for reading!

BethanyShone

I'm not sure, if someone has a game issue or wants help and their questions haven't been answered I see why they may want to 'bump' their post

FloppyFish

Yes but then if they bump a post and ask something irrelivent, theyre derailing the thread which is against the rules.

maybe there could be a New Member section of the forums? With threads for new members to post in? they wouldnt have to show up at the front page unless enabled and can be posted on years after being created, with no posting.

New members also maybe could post their own threads in the New Member section? i dunno

Or they could ask the same question in another thread where it is relevant, or create another thread.

There are also many people who can help people who have bugs that they can tag. Same for if they have technical questions.

lisasc360

The site had locked the older threads that was from 2014 and older that hadn't had any comments on them since that time period but then they were all unlocked. The lock was put in place due to a new member going around posting on the older threads just to get their post count up when there was perfectly newer threads to do that with. So one of the members had tagged some of the Gurus/Staff members to those threads and afterwards the older threads had been locked. But my guess to the reason why they had been unlocked was due to someone who had started a thread to display their builds/Sims/Stories in that hadn't been commented on for a while and so they had wanted to start back up in posting in their thread. Or at least that's what I'm thinking on what had happened.

But I am with you on that they should be locked after a year and with the exception that there hasn't been any comments made to the older threads since then. Like I said, we have newer threads that these new members can make their posts in without bumping up old threads that may had ideas for TS3 just to add their ideas either for TS3 or to comment to say that they hope that those ideas would be something that they would like to see in TS4. There's plenty of ideas threads over in The Sims 4 Ideas Corner without having to look for old TS3 ideas threads. And there's plenty of Tech threads over in the Tech sections without having to bump older threads from 1-9 years ago as the solutions for some of the problems may had been taken care of from patches or have changed.

My solution to having the threads locked consist of this. I believe that if the site does go and lock the older threads that hasn't had any comments made on them since they were made, then what the OP of the threads could do is put in a request to have it open again just by hitting the edit button or have a request button that only the OP can see. They could ask for it and post the reasons why they want it up and hit the send button and one of the moderators or SimGuruDrake or whichever site Guru that we have can review it and decide to open it back up.

And I will say that we may have some members of the site who will disagree with having the older threads locked up due to the New Members not being able to start new threads which is the reason why they go and look for threads that have the issues that they are having with their game. But like I said earlier, we have plenty of Tech threads that have been started just for New Members to post their issues in that they can get help from as there are members who will check those threads to see who needs help. So to me, there really isn't any excuse on why the site needs to keep the older threads open.

FloppyFish

Yeah. New members can also post on people's walls, too. They don't need to bump old threads to get help.

lisasc360

FloppyFish wrote: »

Yeah. New members can also post on people's walls, too. They don't need to bump old threads to get help.

They sure can. I've see it happening a lot over on Rosemow as well as other members pages when the New Members can't make new threads. I've even had a few New Members post over to my wall and I do whatever I can to help and sometimes Rosemow will help that person before I can which is a good thing since some of the times, it's someone who might be up at the time when it's my bedtime...

king_of_simcity7

Just leaving a friendly bump to say that I agree, bumping can be confusing when something from 2014 is revived and full off banned members and toddler requests...

Deshong04

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with bumping as long as it is relevant to the topic regardless of how old it is. Then everyone will find even more to complain about asking why the increase of all these new topics with the same and/or similar subject matter. Not sure why reviving an old thread is bothersome. And it's not just new members who might want to revive a topic because some are interesting that I may not have participated in. And to be honest, I haven't been interested in most recent topics anyway so I don't see why I can't go back to find something else.

Not my fault I'm bored with this forum for the most part. Nothing like it used to be back in TS3 days and I'm pretty sure it was lively around TS2 era as well although I don't recall ever participating in the forums with that game. But I did used to check it out every now and then.

FloppyFish

Why don't you just create your own thread? bumping old threads is against the forum rules, just make your own

Deshong04

While I have not recently gone over the forum rules, as far as I know, bumping never was against the rules. Except for doing so excessively and/or being off topic.

FloppyFish

Bumping is against the rules when you're bumping dead threads. You can bump a thread maybe a day or a couple hours with no posting, but you cannot be excessive and revive the dead.

Deshong04

If anyone wants to re-read the forum rules, it is here: http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/801207/updated-forum-rules#latest

And after doing so, your claim that "bumping dead threads" being against the rules is false. The forum rules do not mention anything about reviving old threads which I already knew. But had to double check to see if there was anything updated recently that I missed.

If the moderators of this site wish to disable the ability to allow posters to revive an old thread, then they will. But they don't except for some topics posted back in 2014 or earlier.

=======

- No Spamming or Flooding. Flooding or spamming means posting disruptive numbers of messages and images, including posting the same message in multiple forums. This also includes "bumping" threads multiple times. "Bumping" a thread is when someone posts "bump" or anything similar in their thread to keep it on the first page of threads. Doing this once or twice is fine, but multiple times within a short period of time is considered spamming. Use your bumps sparingly.

For example:

OK:
SimsFan: I love The Sims! What do you love about it?
SimsFanchick: Me too! I love building!
SimsFandude: Me too! I love making movies!
SimsFan: BUMP! Who else likes The Sims?
Sims4LYFE: I do! I love making stories!
Sims4EVA: I love it!
IheartDaSims: I totally love the sims !
**a few hours or a day later**
SimsFan: BUMP! This is cool! I love reading your replies! Let's see more!

NOT OK:
SimsFan: I love The Sims 3! What do you love about it?
**a few minutes later**
SimsFan: BUMP!
**a few minutes later**
SimsFan: BUMP!
**a few minutes later**
SimsFan: BUMP! Anyone?
**a few minutes later**
SimsFan: BUMP!

We know everyone wants their thread to be seen, but this forum is very large and moves at a fast pace. Keep track of your thread using the bookmarks. Be patient and eventually other players will participate in your thread when they are interested.

lisasc360

Like take this thread for an example, this user bumped up an old ideas thread that was created in 2009 just to let the OP know that the game already has the ice cream truck that came with the Seasons EP. Why go out of the trouble to bring up an old thread from 2009 to bump up an old ideas thread just to tell the OP as well as others that they things that they asked for is in the game? The bumper should had looked at the time stamp and saw that the thread is old as heck and left it alone as it isn't relevant anymore and didn't need to be bumped up.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/27070/idea-post/p1

Of course there was one other bumper whop had just bumped it up a few days ago to add their comment that really had nothing to do with the thread anyhow. So to me, the old TS3 ideas and feedback threads should be locked since EA is done with TS3. Yes, sometimes a TS4 player will bump up the old TS3 ideas threads just to state that they hope that all of the ideas in that thread gets added into TS4. Why bump up an old ideas thread just to say that or to add ideas for TS4 into when there is plenty of threads for TS4 ideas?

dreamerz13

The thing is I almost never see anybody contribute anything of value to these revived threads. It's not on topic. Or it's like somebody asked for suggestions on like names or something or help 8 years ago and whether or not they ever got their answer they sure as heck weren't still waiting after 8 years. Usually they got their answer though if it was help and/or the issue actually managed to get fixed in a patch and the response is unnecessary because it's resolved. (I also hate this anyway, when like something gets resolved but another 10 people post with the same answer anyway. Unneccessary whether it's been 2 days or 2 years )

Or as Lisasc pointed out it'll be a thread where somebody was making suggestions for the game and somebody will come in "but we already have this" and it kind of makes it seem like they think the OP is stupid or something for not noticing, when it's them that didn't notice the date of the thread.

And the people responding to loads of discussions to get their post count up and half of it *barely* offers a real contribution to the thread or is again something that just doesn't really need a response anymore. I get wanting to get to member status but surely you can manage to do so just fine by offering contributions to current threads. Still need the likes too anyway and you're probably going to have way better luck on a current thread.

Sure it's nice to see some old picture threads or some of these threads that talk about like your play style or whatever get revive. Some of them I may not have seen before or they just never really stop being able to be relevant so it's nice to see them get a second shot.

And honestly unless there are a few *current* threads about an issue somebody is posting about, nobody is going to whine about somebody making a new thread for it. If the original thread is like 3 years old and buried and old enough to be locked, nobody knows it's there anyway.


I really do wish they would lock all threads that haven't had a response in like 6 months or a year. If people could like not be obnoxious about reviving old threads and actually pay attention and not post if it's resolved or they can't offer any real contribution it would be fine. But they can't, so...