I just read a thread on YNOT where a member had posted looking for some content and since he's a friend I took a look to see if I could help. It wasn't until I'd read some of the replies that I realized this was a thread that was originally posted on Monday Aug 23, 2004, and had been bumped by a content provider to spam their site.

Bumping a thread that is a year and 8 months old? WTF? Look, I don't have a problem with bumping threads that have fallen down the page to bring new life to them, or bumping a thread that you run across that is a few days old because you hadn't been to the board recently and wanted to add your two cents, but when a thread is weeks, months, or years old, leave it alone and start a new one.

For those of you that don't understand message board etiquette, let me point out that you won't endear yourself to the community if you go around bumping old threads, for any reason, spam or not. Sure there will always be plenty of new members that may not have seen the thread in the first place, but anyone that was around when the thread was first started probably did and chances are we won't remember it so we'll waste our time reading until we either notice the original date or someone flames the bumper.

Two lessons here and the first is one that I obviously need to do more often and that is to always take a quick look at the post date of the first post in a thread and the second is, don't bump old threads, damnit.