I think there should be some incentive for that, like make those kinds of comments a spotlight or something. Maybe make a community called “late replies” that showcases the best such replies, or have a rule saying they grant free karma (in Reddit’s case).
I commented on a 9 y/o Reddit thread yesterday
It almost time to celebrate the 12th birthday of “can splunk stop being absolutely fucking clueless and claiming their stupidity is a legal problem only they suffer” ticket about authenticated yum repos.
Usually I find my own answer to a Stack Overflow problem I’m having today, but I wrote it two years ago. And that means I’ll have that time machine one day. Woot!
I think that might happen more often on mastodon, since if you reply to a thread there, it gets boosted to all your followers.
It might be interesting to add a sorting method to Lemmy, that would bump posts every time a comment is added.
Perhaps something to turn on for each community individually ?
Waiting 5 months to reply to this.
Well you blew your load in 11hrs.
Question in post was never about replying for the first time.
I was just kidding
I haven’t recently, but when I am trying to solve a problem and come across a post/comment which does a great job of helping me out, I’ll sometimes post a “thank you” to the author. On the receiving end of things, I had posted a couple of kinda useful scripts in the PowerShell sub-reddit and would get both “thank yous” and questions regarding those scripts from time to time. I also had a really popular post (it’s still linked in the wiki) in the cordcutters sub-reddit which elicited questions years later.
Otherwise, this experience is far more common.
I kudos answers constantly. Half the time it’s my own, which means my account knew the answer and posted it, but I remember none of this.
I may be multiple personalities, and I may not even be the smart one.
Never. God no, why?
RemindMe! 5 months
Do we have a remind me bot?
@remindme@mstdn.social 5 months
Thanks!
@remindme@mstdn.social 5 months
If this works I’ll thank you. In five months.
Thankfully not, I don’t miss scrolling past publicly-posted comments which could have just been the save button!
Wait the save button can remind you on Lemmy? Is this on the desktop? I don’t see an option on the Voyager app at least.
More than five months ago
(I sort by new on Lemmy lol)
Every once in a blue moon, I’ll skim over my saved posts and comments. Even more rare, occasionally I might respond months later if I think I apparently forgot to respond when the thread was fresh.
Just a couple or few days ago I responded to a comment from like 6 months ago where someone asked me for a link to a project of mine.
Regardless, that’s very rare, even for me.
I sort by new and always mean to go back to look at old things but usually forget. Guess i need to hit the hot button occasionally.
It would be truly wonderful if this question was asked 5 years ago.
Why? What happened 5 years ago?
Sorry I meant 5 months.
I was playing up to the premise of your question.
I think the term would be “necrobump”, and Im not sure why you want to encourage it? If a thread is active for 5 months sure, but otherwise everyone has moved on…
I’m not against necrobumping in certain contexts. If I have a tech support question, I can promise you I’m still clueless after 5 months. Also a niche creative project can take over 5 months to find it’s audience, and creators are usually happy to hear feedback.
Answering an unanswered question is definitely valid. Feedback for a niche creative project may be better served by a new post, but a late comment is fine as well.
I dont have a problem with necrobumping, but i dont think it deserves to be promoted or incentivesed in a “bestof5monthslater” showcase.
Anything that can be gamed for imaginary internet points will be abused, and it wont be long before there is a flood of “Upvote if your still reading in 2025 🥳🤠🤯” comments.
Oh, that’s true. I’ve spent so much time on Lemmy I lived in a world where “who else is still listening to this wildly popular song in 2024??” didn’t exist
I still get necrobumps from reddit on year-old comments despite having left reddit. It’s weird.
Oh man, that brings back memories of necroposting on old IPB forums
I think the term would be “necrobump”
That’s from old school forums where posting to a thread bumped it back to the top of the feed and thus thrust old info prominently into everyone’s view again. You won’t get that same bump effect with most sorts on Lemmy. (“New comments” sort might work like that though? I’m not sure exactly how that’s handled.)
otherwise everyone has moved on
It’s pretty rare to get much of a response even after just 24 hours or so – not just in terms of comments, but even for upvotes. I think after that point, posts are usually so far down people’s feeds that almost no one sees it any more. That probably also discourages most people from replying since basically no one will see it. (Maybe the poster of the thread or comment you’re replying to will see it, but probably almost no one else will if it’s more than a day or so old.)
Some people do dig through community archives and/or user profiles – particularly after a new thread is posted – and they’ll occasionally upvote old posts, but they very rarely comment.
Its not a global bump, but it does bump it back into conciousness for the person being replied to. Ive had it happen a few times on lemmy, and its always so confusing because i had completely forgotten what i had originally said.
necrobump
What a horrible name for “people responding to a thread that is older than a mayfly”.
Suggesting something a few months old is “dead” is especially churn-y; like “Ahmahagawd, that thread is, like, SO last-heartbeaaat”. Ensure the voice dissolves into an indolent vocal fry for best effects.
Its a fairly established internet term and/or culture. This isnt a “zoomers have no attention span thing”, its been a thing since the dawn of the internet.
Life moves on.
Within the last year, I’ve definitely had some replies to old threads of mine. And if it’s a question, I’ll respond. And I think I did comment on another’s thread at least once, confirming and thanking them for the solution. All of these were tech support related. I feel like that’s one of the few topical areas where that’s acceptable.
Just the other day, I got a reply to a thread from ~6 months ago on kbin!
It was spam. :/
Lemmy still tends to show posts from ages ago in hot, so some slip by
April 18th.
If I see the person still active on the platform I’ll try my luck. Otherwise if it seems like they are the only ones on the whole internet who (possibly) knows how to help with my problem, but that’ll more likely result in a DM.
