Regulars, please read.

It has come to our attention that there is an excessive amount of the following appearing in threads:

• Off-topic discussion in threads
• Bringing up old threads
• Asking to be thanked in any way or form
• Thanking each other for the thanks

The most recent epidemic of off topic posting involved a 10 post spam of the "Bet you haven't seen one of these" threads, about water. The members know who they are, and whilst no action will be taken, it is a warning.

The odd off topic post, providing it has some relevance to the matter at hand is acceptable once in a while, but not the amount that is present in the threads at this time.

If someone thanks you for a post, DO NOT thank them for the point. Also any posts which seem to have been thanked for no reason or appear not to be helpful will have have the thanked points removed.

New members, looking for an answer to their problems will have a much harder time, particularly if in among the helpful posts are irrelevant posts.

Bringing old threads back to life, the most impressive was a post Sniper made in 2001 that was replied to today. This is the problem that has happened more than once, by the same users. We are introducing a new policy, which is that any thread that has remained UNANSWERED for more than one month, does not get replied to under any circumstances.

The reason for this, aside from having to plow through year old threads when searching for the up-to-date posts, is that new users will see the old threads with new posts, and think that this information is current, and possibly make a wrong decision.

This is an announcement to let the regular members know that problems are beginning to emerge. No action is going to be taken now, but the moderating team can suggest you take heed and stop doing the above. Otherwise, you may find yourself on a ban.

Thank you for reading this, and please don't take this as a threat not to post. We are glad to see the community here thriving, but not in such a way that renders the site useless.

Hardware Forums Staff