A necropost is a post on an old, abandoned thread in the Discussion Forums that has been considered 'dead' for a while. Many times, people will do this to answer questions.[1] Necroposting is seen as a form of spam and clogs up the forums with old and unneeded topics. Sometimes, users go through every old open topic on a sub-forum and post on it to intentionally get the topics closed or dustbinned.[citation needed]
 Note: | In the Suggestions forum, posting on any age topic is not considered necroposting as long as the suggestion is still relevant and the post is not spam or unconstructive. |
Definition
If the topic has been inactive for a significant amount of time, and the new post adds nothing to the topic, then the post can be considered a necropost. However, a post in a sticky or ITopic is not considered a necropost if it adds more useful information (sticky topics are kept at the top of the forum page anyway, so posting does not bump them). Necroposting on purpose is strongly discouraged, as it is unhelpful, clogging up the top of the forum with outdated and unneeded topics.
If the topic is not dead, but the post contributes nothing to the discussion, then the post simply counts as spam, and would give the poster an alert.
There is no official amount of time that turns a post into a necropost, though when describing a necropost, Scratchers may say that bumping a thread after a month or so of inactivity (in other words, the last post was older than a month) would count as necroposting. However, if the topic is important enough or the post adds more useful information to the topic, then it is not considered a necropost.[2]
Differences in other forums
Suggestions, Things I'm Reading And Playing, Things I'm Making And Creating, Show and Tell and the Language Forums have different rules involving posting on old topics.[2]
Accidental Necroposts
Necroposts often happen by accident, usually where a user posts on a topic without checking the dates of the previous posts[3], frequently if the forums were searched with a search engine.
Users who are new to the forums may necropost unknowingly if they are unaware that topics in the forum are bumped when posted on, but more experienced forum users can accidentally necropost as well if they forget to check.
Many new users also might Google the question and find the forum and post on it.
Responding to Necroposts
Scratchers are encouraged to report necroposts without responding, unless the user is very new to the forum and nobody has informed them about necroposting (this is still somewhat discouraged however) regardless of the situation the poster should be reported so the Scratch Team can handle them. Responding to necroposts often has the effect of being unnecessarily cruel to the original poster if it was an accident and is discouraged.[4]
