Questions about "gravedigging"?

[simplydriftingalong]

Why is it an issue to post in an old, inactive thread?

I haven't been able to find a rule about "gravedigging" posted anywhere except in the last posts of threads that've been locked. If it is posted somewhere else, could someone please link me? (I promise I've looked for it! If it is there I either couldn't find it or overlooked it, which is very possible.) It's been several years since I've been active in the forums; I think that rule was added sometime a while ago, but I'm still unfamiliar with it. I understand enough that any of my old topics are off limits for posting today, but I don't understand why that is.

Why is it recommended to create a new topic instead of continuing to use an old one that's been inactive a while? I thought that creating more topics instead of reusing old ones would be more of an issue, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I understand that the rules have changed several times over the years, so if a thread does get locked because it broke the rules by virtue of it didn't in the past but it does now, that's completely understandable.

Any insight would be appreciated! I'd just like to understand better. There are a few rules I don't necessarily like, but I completely understand why they're in place & agree with or respect the reasoning behind them. (For example, "venting" in general isn't really allowed anymore; I remember really enjoying the "things that annoy you" thread that existed for many years; I thought it was a nice safe place to vent on a comforting site. That isn't allowed anymore, & that's perfectly understandable; I can see how that kind of thing could allow for a lot of negativity & toxicity to live in the forums, and the "comfort corner" exists still to fufill the kindest essence of that.)

This was my favorite site when I was a kid, & it still brings me a lot of joy. I'm glad I've had the time to be on CS again lately; I want to continue to be more active, so I want to be sure I'm fully understanding & following all of the rules & decorum on the forum. Thanks for reading, & thanks in advance for any explanation!

[BeatrixDaybreak]

I am also wondering this!

[Catsplat18]

I understand why it wouldn't be allowed if you're reigniting old arguments, but just finding an interesting topic that died (as many of them do nowadays) and hoping to rekindle its spark shouldn't be banned. Honestly, I'm quite guilty of this... I see the last post was in 2020 and it doesn't sink in that the thread is over 2 years old.

[Celozon]

Its usually best to contact staff directly through help ticket if you would like further explanation on site rules or need more details on them.

I don't believe there is any specific rule on gravedigging (may just be categorized under spam) more that its just seen as a general courtesy. Typically the only type of threads that would get posts considered gravedigging are discussion topics, and if a discussion topic has not had any posts for multiple years, than yes a new thread should be created instead. Oftentimes I see this happening on things like club threads, where the owner of the thread is no longer active, so they cannot maintain the club, or they may be active but simply not interested in maintaining it anymore. Gravedigging can also result in people trying to respond to years-old comments, and to people who may not even agree with a comment they made years ago, which is now being resurfaced. Essentially, the discussion that was happening on the thread is no longer happening, and if you would like to discuss the same thing, a new discussion should be started.

And of course if you do happen to respond to a thread and later realize that it was an old thread and might be considered gravedigging, you can report your post and have the mods look at it, we can even move your post to its own thread to create a new discussion if we consider it gravedigging. And just because a new post was made on a years-old thread doesn't automatically make it gravedigging, one obvious exception being a thread owner reviving their own thread they haven't used in a while, but as I mentioned its typically seen on discussion or club threads where its generally going to be seen as gravedigging.

If that didn't fully answer your question or you'd like further clarification on any other rules, feel free to send in a help ticket and we'll see if we can help clear things up for you ^^

[simplydriftingalong]

Thank you!! That doesn't fully answer my questions but it is a very helpful explanation that provides a lot of insight. I really appreciate it! And I think I understand a bit better now. I couldn't find any sort of explanation on "grave-digging" so besides context clues I wasn't really sure what would be considered such.

As of right now, there is no mention of grave-digging or anything similar in the Spam Guide.

I thought this question might be more helpful as a public post rather than a help ticket because other users like me (more casual players &/or players who've been inactive for a while returning) might have the same sort of questions.