Sword of Damocles -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS*****

[T'Bonz]

Oy...FIVE YEARs?

Next time, start a new thread on the topic.

[Christopher]

^What's wrong with using a pre-existing thread anyway? I never understood that.

[lvsxy808]

Indeed - starting a new thread only serves to forget all the existing discussion that has already taken place in this one. I would have thought you'd want to avoid cluttering the boards up with more than one thread on the same subject.

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[Spocky8492]

Actually I hesitated between opening a new topic or using an old one. I said "an old one" because there are already a few topics about Sword of Damocles and I chose the bigger one, in order to try to group the reviews. I thought it was better for me to use the old one, because my 2 cents opinion on Sword of Damocles alone in a topic is maybe not very intersting. I don't want to open a debate, particularly here, as it's not the good topic. What is sure is that I have the same concern for other books. I finished Last Full Measure and The Good That Men Do and I don't know if I have to open a new topic each time I want to give my opinion about a book. And because currently I'm mostly reading books published around 2007-2008 I will have the same concern each time. What do you prefer, moderators? To open a topic to discuss this subject or it isn't open to debate and in this case just tell me what you prefer, new topic or old topic and I will do as you say. I'm new on this board, so I absolutely don't want to create problem.

[Christopher]

lvsxy808 wrote:

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Indeed - starting a new thread only serves to forget all the existing discussion that has already taken place in this one.

Exactly what I was thinking. Why should interesting and informative conversations from the past be buried away and forgotten? It's good to unearth old discussions from time to time.

[T'Bonz]

lvsxy808 wrote:

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Indeed - starting a new thread only serves to forget all the existing discussion that has already taken place in this one. I would have thought you'd want to avoid cluttering the boards up with more than one thread on the same subject.

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Do you really think after five years that anyone would have remembered the existing discussion?

[Christopher]

T'Bonz wrote:

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Do you really think after five years that anyone would have remembered the existing discussion?

That's exactly my point. Reviving old threads lets them be remembered rather than vanishing into obscurity.

[T'Bonz]

And I submit that if no one has seen fit to comment in a thread for five years, it's dead, Jim.

[Christopher]

T'Bonz wrote:

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And I submit that if no one has seen fit to comment in a thread for five years, it's dead, Jim.

But as we've just seen here, sometimes new people come along and want to restart the conversation. And other new members who've joined in the interim might find it worth their while to read the old posts in that thread and might learn something from it. If you ran a library, would you throw away books that hadn't been checked out in five years?

[King Daniel]

T'Bonz wrote:

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Oy...FIVE YEARs?

Next time, start a new thread on the topic.

Trek BBS, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Trek Literature forum. It's five-year mission...

[Therin of Andor]

Christopher wrote:

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If you ran a library, would you throw away books that hadn't been checked out in five years?

Sadly, that's exactly what happens. Out with the old, in with the new. It's not like libraries can suddenly add new sets of shelves every few years.

As for reviving old threads, I've also never really understood why it's so awful to revive them. The search facility never seems to be 100% successful (I find Googling turns up TrekBBS threads faster) and it is sometimes very frustrating for regulars to have to recreate old replies to old questions asked anew. But then, I guess if we were moderators we'd see the frustrations that come with old threads?

[T'Bonz]

Christopher wrote:

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If you ran a library, would you throw away books that hadn't been checked out in five years?

That's not really a valid comparison. Books have much more long-term value (and some genres more than others) than posts on an online messageboard. As much as I love this place, it's just not in the same category as a good library.

Again - the policy is to not revive dead threads and double that for ones that are so ancient. Unless there is a very compelling reason to use an old thread, don't do it.

[Defcon]

T'Bonz wrote:

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Again - the policy is to not revive dead threads and double that for ones that are so ancient. Unless there is a very compelling reason to use an old thread, don't do it.

From another thread in Q,S&F talking about revving old threads:

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

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As others have said, it's no big deal, as long as you're adding something substantial. Some people will complain regardless, but it's best to ignore that and keep contributing.

Maybe it would be helpful if the admins (and mods, as I have seen different mods handle such things differently, too) here had a common approach to this issue. As it is some "officials" say it's a total no-no, some handle it case-by-case, and some are pretty much for it.

Since you're the head-honcho here I guess what you said here is the "law", but not every mod/admin seem to enforce it.

[vorador33]

Dont really see the problem in using an old thread to talk about a book, whats the point in even keeping them on the site if you cant use them. I just recently finished this book. I really enjoyed it, it was a bit slow to get going but once it did it was great. I really liked the descriptions of the insect aliens civilisation.

[Christopher]

^Right. I can see the "no old threads" policy making sense in something like the Miscellaneous forum or something socially oriented, but this is a forum specifically about books. People are constantly picking up old Trek books for the first time and coming here to talk about them and read what others have had to say on them. So Trek Lit is a forum where it's possible, even likely, for threads of any age to be resurrected and contributed to substantively after being dormant for years. Hence my library analogy.