There's already a thread for this vs bumping old threads
 

This isn't so much a suggestion or a question, it's more of an observation but perhaps has a solution...

All too often people will have threads locked or merged because there are existing threads on the subject matter, but it's never really been clear where the line is... for example, Jess bumped an old thread of mine about fridge magnets and people have had a further discussion about them in there despite the thread itself being over two years old - but if Jess had made a new thread about fridge magnets, would anyone have remembered my thread from over 2 years ago about them? Probably not. I know I wouldn't have. But then the other day I posted in General Interests about ASMR and MTVN remembered that Stu had posted a thread about it and linked it in there... and sometimes you'll have someone post a thread about something, only for someone else to come in and say "we already have a thread about this" - there's no way of keeping track of all of the topics that have ever been posted about on the forum, so where do we draw the line? If someone wants to talk about, I don't know, knitting for example, and it turns out there was a lengthy topic about knitting from the mid-2000s, is that poster expected to have found that thread and continued talking about it in there? Or would they be moaned at for bumping an old thread? Because that happens a lot too... What's acceptable and what's unacceptable in terms of 'duplicate threads'?

I think if it's a thread about a TV show/film/game, it's worth bumping, but if it is a random topic, there's no real need to bump the older version of the thread.

If theres been a fairly recent thread then usually we would expect that one to be bumped.

Bumping old ones is fine too if you actually have a reason to bump it(eg. contributing to the convo). Just gets quite annoying when people bump old ones for no reason at all :laugh:

Only reason I looked for that ASMR thread was cos I thought it was you who'd made the other one not long ago lol, normally I'd agree with what Vicky said

I was just using it as an example 'cause it was what made me think about this :laugh:

Yeah sure Greg, just admit that you're using this topic to have a pop at Matthew :bored:

good work

Bump :elephant:

He is just so transparent

I think it doesn't matter if it's in chat and games... if it's a thread about something really specific like a song, a film or a news story, it should be merged, but if it's something like "what's your favourite fizzy drink" it doesn't matter to make a new one (if it's been a few months)

I don't know why people complain either way. I don't see the problem, unless there's already an active topic.

Dis