Unwritten Rules
 

I just learned there is an unwritten rule, "Don't Necropost" I was unaware of such a thing, as the rules page http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/rules.html never mentions anything about "Necroposts" so I thought I'd post this thread to learn if there are any other unwritten rules, at this forum, I should be aware of in order to do my best at complying with the expected uniformity of these forums?

Thanks You
Stragonian

Not dragging up dead threads isn't a rule, it's just common sense.

common sense , yes

yesterday someone posted a RHEL/ ruby post on a RHEL4 thread from 2005
then again on a 2008 RHEL4 thread

if one is still using RHEL4 then they have much more problems than trying to use a rhel6 solution .

bringing up say a Fedora 6 old post and asking
Did you fix this, i have THE SAME PROBLEM on fedora 17

the two OS's are not even in the same species genus any more

Unfortunately, your comments are opinions and don't address the question.

Another unwritten rule is: don't try to introduce wars, drama or trolling from other communities. For example: if you feel you were unjustly banned from the Puppy forums, this is not the place to discuss your grievances.

I believe the following apply in the case of resurrecting old threads which are no longer relevant.
I have seen many instances on this site of old threads being resurrected with something relevant and no complaint (or a jokey one, between posters who know of each other) being made.

I hope that answers your initial question more completely, though it does just mean "use common sense".

My apologies. The answer is "no" then. :)

As well intentioned as they may be, necroposts get VERY confusing VERY quickly, with other well intentioned people trying to help people who haven't been on the forum for years and years etc.

???--I see nothing going off-topic......quite the opposite.

Thank You for addressing the question... No "wars" I understand, No "drama" I understand. Is the "For Example:" you are describing an example of trolling, if not what is trolling?

I have in the past ( and will do) if a search for a program or problem only brings up one or two hits
i will add a fix for it
noting that yes it is an OLD thread but for others searching
here is a fix

i do this for "Celestia" all the time

Not to necropost is not a rule because it depends on the topic of the thread. Posting something to a thread from 2004 that has problems in an now unsupported version of a distribution as topic is not useful for anyone. Posting a solution to an unsolved problem in Vim which is maybe dated 2007 is a different thing, since the solution most likely will work on recent versions (Vim isn't a fast moving target) and may be still helpful to other people.

Otherwise, the unwritten rules are most likey the same that you apply to your real world environment and are mostly already adressed: no drama, no trolling, don't start flamewars, just the basic netiquette.

Ok, this is off topic but it may help to explain or try to explain this thread better. I got a rebuke from druuna in the post http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...system-228904/ today at 05:54 AM for Necroposting and decided not to do such a thing as necropost anymore, because I was asked not to necropost. I had necroposted on that thread because ... I too was writing a script today to locate a possible "system" user and group then install that system user and group, in the event they did not exist on the system, only one answer was formatted as a script in the thread, since it was a perl script, and the original poster did not mention what scripting language, after seeing two other people Jan-Willem Arnold, and unSpawn, post to the thread nearly 5 years after the thread was created, I figured another 3 years didn't matter, and to this end, I learned what necroposting is.

After the rebuke for necroposting, I created this thread to better understand those rules that are not written, but may be a common part of the uniformity of this forum.

Definitions may help as well, I work with computers, not the culture that surrounds computers, or niche words within that culture, because as of 5:53 AM this morning I had never heard of a Necropost, Trolling, Flamewars, ect ...

Please don't go off topic over this example: but if I was to say, "Tagging Up" during a baseball game is just common sense, how many of you will now have to google, "Tagging Up" to know what I'm talking about?

So, this thread is not about Necroposting its about the other things that may seem to be common scene to a computer culturalists within this forum, but may not be known by someone who never got into the computer culture ... just computers themselves.

Thank You TobiSGD for the link, I was able to follow it to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_slang

I would see the thread you posted in as a gray area regarding necroposting. Not necessarily something I would blame you for, since you provided a solution that still works and wasn't delivered in that form.

Anyways, the one thing any user/member of a forum, chat or blog should know (and this includes more or less everything that was mentioned here besides necroposting) is Netiquette. If you keep this in mind you are almost ever on the save side.

Thank You TobiSGD for the additional link on Netiquette.

From my point of view the issue is more of a way to logically support a user with some issue.

10 year old post also has to be taken into context. A lot has changed in that time.


If for example a dead thread has some issue and now you feel that you want to post about your "close to" issue then we have to read the entire deal and try to figure out what is going on. If you had simply posted to a new post everyone who reads it will start off with a single starting place. We do get confused sometimes. OK, just me.

What a user might think is close may not be in fact close at all. Now you get people quoting this confusing thread and it then makes it worse.

If you had added something that was useful to a topic or a solution to the original issue then there should be no issue.

I'd think you could have sent a PM to a person and ask them why they scolded you in public. They could have done that also.