When and How to Bump My Thread?

[Tom Bombtongue]

I had bumped a thread of my own and that post got deleted. I didn't know not to bump my thread back then. So the question is, when and how can I bump a thread of my own if it stays without replies for a time?

 

[kanewolf]

Because bumping threads is against the rules of the board. "Don't" is how and "Never" is when.

Read the "DOs" and "DON'Ts" in the FAQ -- https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/toms-forums-f-a-q.2305891/

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Instead of bumping, add updated info.

 

[britechguy]

What qualifies as "bumping" on TH?

Is it strictly doing something like a follow-up post with the word "bump," "yoo hoo," or similar?

Depending on how bumping is defined by the TH moderation team, adding a post with some trivial bit of additional information or asking (after a couple of days), "Has anyone got any ideas about this?," could be regarded as a bump.

 

[USAFRet]

What qualifies as "bumping" on TH?

Is it strictly doing something like a follow-up post with the word "bump," "yoo hoo," or similar?

Depending on how bumping is defined by the TH moderation team, adding a post with some trivial bit of additional information or asking (after a couple of days), "Has anyone got any ideas about this?," could be regarded as a bump.

"Has anyone got any ideas about this?,"
With no additional info, yes, that would be considered a 'bump'.

 

[britechguy]

So, I guess if you wait a couple of days, and might happen to believe your topic "fell through the cracks" (which does happen on occasion), you'd better come up with some additional information to add as a "fig leaf" so that you're not considered to be bumping.

I have no patience for those who post and, say, two hours later are demanding to know where the responses are. I don't have any issue with someone who's waited a couple of days doing a single "flag waving" without having to make any pretense about doing so. More than a single means they don't seem to understand that not all questions will necessarily receive an answer because no one among the regular readership knows one.

Another thing I'll be adding to my growing list of "unwritten rules of TH" (and, I hasten to add, all sites have 'em). I've been known to do the very rare instance of "flag waving" when it seems to me that the question I posed almost certainly has an answer, that the typical readership is composed of people where someone likely has it, and nothing at all had been forthcoming after a lengthy waiting period.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I have said before something like "do you think xtz would fix this? How would i go about doing that?"

 

[USAFRet]

As you may well know, any community may have lots of 'unwritten rules'.
Not every possible condition or action can be written as to Yes or No.

Try to write a rule for every action, and someone will try to game the system.
"No bumping before 24 hours" simply means a bump at 24 hours + 2 seconds. Yes, people will do that.

Another forum I run, I kept trying to add rules based on "OK, Idiot did this disruptive action. We need to stop that."
After a while, it got far too unweildly.
So I reduced it down to 5. The first two are "Have fun" and "Whatever an Admin says, goes. Don't like it, go play elsewhere."

 

[britechguy]

Well, @USAFRet, you and I are definitely on the same page overall about rules. I, too, have found myself in the position of needing to write additional rules in response to something someone has done that I never, in my wildest dreams, would have thought anyone would do. But I only add a rule when it's obvious that the, "but there's no rule against it," defense could be used in the future.

One of my all-time favorite quotations is:

A sensible person realizes that all principles that can be expressed in a statement of finite length are oversimplified.
~ Robert Heppe

And one has to oversimplify, at least to some extent, when it comes to setting out rules. Having a set of rules for a forum that looks like your typical legal contract for buying a home is tantamount to having none at all, as no one will read or understand them.