Ever Notice...

Joined
Jan 15, 2017
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It's Sunday morning and I'm waiting for the rest of the household (wife, dogs, cats, fish) to wake up. So I'm just rambling.

Did you ever notice how some obscure topic will appear on this forum, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere two or three other threads on the same obscure topic will pop up. As I type this, on the first page of General Discussion, there are three different threads on the "DPx HEST/F URBAN" knife. Now when was the last time you saw a single thread about this knife, and all of a sudden three of them appear. Sometimes they'll even show up one right after the other.

Please explain this phenomenon to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks.
 
One thread was started by yours truly close to a year and a half ago. It has been resuscitated by Mr Pelton himself because he felt the need to address some of the comments.
 
Ive noticed the same thing. Sometimes its similar questions on “how to”. Sometimes its about a certain knife. Its the collective mind of the community that creates these questions while we sleep.
 
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Happens on other forums I look at too. It is mostly chalked up to necro threading. Someone searches a topic, multiple threads with similar titles pop up, and he/she comments in all.
 
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I was just about to open a thread and ask if anyone had experience with DPX customers service. I just got this in and it’s missing two screws.
 
Usually it’s just one person that goes around resuscitating dead threads for one reason or another.


bachman44 bachman44 beat me to it.
 
It's Sunday morning and I'm waiting for the rest of the household (wife, dogs, cats, fish) to wake up. So I'm just rambling.

Did you ever notice how some obscure topic will appear on this forum, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere two or three other threads on the same obscure topic will pop up. As I type this, on the first page of General Discussion, there are three different threads on the "DPx HEST/F URBAN" knife. Now when was the last time you saw a single thread about this knife, and all of a sudden three of them appear. Sometimes they'll even show up one right after the other.

Please explain this phenomenon to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks.

RYP posted to two threads mentioning his brand, hence you have a couple of DPX threads on the front page. They'll fizzle out soon enough. Then you'll have two or three threads about something else. ;)
 
Can't say I have an explanation, but it is certainly a noticeable pattern. I assume there are zeitgeists out there on the internet, and after reading about them, some of the folks bring their questions here. I've only been a member since November, and I bet there's been close to a dozen threads started by people wanting to EDC a fixed blade. I guess that's attributable to the rise in bushcrafting, which seems to be a current trend. The more people interested in knives the better, but it is worth noting how some things seem to come in waves.
 
I am going to hijack this thread.

What do you think is worse: necro an old thread or start a new one, which will be almost the same as the old one?
 
I am going to hijack this thread.

What do you think is worse: necro an old thread or start a new one, which will be almost the same as the old one?
Personally, I think it depends on how relevant/timeless the original content was... if there is a treasure trove of info that will just be rehashed... necro is more useful to me. A lot of stuff is necro'd with old/incomplete/out of date data though... so... what do I know :p
 
I am going to hijack this thread.

What do you think is worse: necro an old thread or start a new one, which will be almost the same as the old one?
Good question. I enjoy looking at old threads but have to be careful of adding a post to someone who asked a question years ago. I would add to an old thread if it isn't over a year that the last person commented.

I just went through a thread that asked for examples of large and small knives of the same model. It started back in 2016 and had long spells of inactivity but is still alive today.
 
I am going to hijack this thread.

What do you think is worse: necro an old thread or start a new one, which will be almost the same as the old one?

Interesting point, and I've always wondered about that. If there's already a thread dealing exactly with an issue of concern to you, why start a new one when you can just pick up where the old one left off. Seems like it would save a lot of space and redundancy. However, necroing old threads seems to be a real no-no, so I guess we don't much of a choice.
 
It's Sunday morning and I'm waiting for the rest of the household (wife, dogs, cats, fish) to wake up. So I'm just rambling.

Did you ever notice how some obscure topic will appear on this forum, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere two or three other threads on the same obscure topic will pop up. As I type this, on the first page of General Discussion, there are three different threads on the "DPx HEST/F URBAN" knife. Now when was the last time you saw a single thread about this knife, and all of a sudden three of them appear. Sometimes they'll even show up one right after the other.

Please explain this phenomenon to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks.

I have noticed it regularly in the sale forums. Suddenly some obscure knife will be posted for sale by three different sellers. It happens a lot. I created a thread about it some time back and the general consensus I got back was "nah ah that does not happen." The push back was so strident I actually got to wondering if there was something a bit more than "consistent coincidence" going on.
 
Some of it is simply confirmation bias. This forum is very big and moves very fast. Even topics that are relatively infrequently discussed here often have multiple threads going on at the same time with people chiming in here or there. One day one of them catches your attention and that makes other threads on that same topic stick out to you more, so you start seeing a pattern where there isn't really one. As a species, noticing patterns is very, very beneficial to us, so we see them reflexively, even when they're not really there.
 
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