Why are decades old posts being included?

You said it,Sasta. It is to lure you in when GN is quiet.
Also, beware 'problem' threads as they are probably made up to lure comments.

The threads may still be of interest to people who didn’t see the original.

You answered your question yourself, Sasta. You said yesterday: "It was interesting reading". Other peole presumably found that too and wanted to add comments.

Is annoying though if you don’t look at the date on the OP and end up writing a response to someone who - as you say- now has a 17 years old GS.

No, not 17, he’s now 19.

It was 13 years ago.

It is usually because some scammer wants to try and sell us something that will do us harm and just picks on any thread, old or new at random.

You can tell this has happened because there will be post that has been deleted followed by another from a current member saying 'reported'

Often members, including me, do not read the small print and notice that the date and time on the last post is July 2020, or whatever and just start posting again. so the thread is revived.

I think as well, that someone with a problem or issue may google a phrase, which then throws up an old GN thread. I once googled something about walking boots and found quite an interesting thread (on another site) and was a sentence or two in before I realised that I had written it several years earlier!

The trouble with resurrecting old threads, often by a new name on GN, is that the new post may be similar, but equally as often quite different to the original thread.
As the majority of GN’s don’t appear to read the whole thread - subsequent contributors read only read the title and add to the original, as in the case in question where the child is now an adult/uni/married!

I’ve suggested that there should be a way of GNHQ removing dormant threads after a certain length of time and not allowing them to be resurrected.

different from ……sorry.

Calendargirl

No, not 17, he’s now 19.

It was 13 years ago.

Oh yes indeed 19! And at this stage no point responding.

Sometimes the ‘problem’ posts sound far fetched and,if true, probably they need medical or psychiatric help. Most of us want to help but wouldn’t want to be giving advice which may or may not be harmful because we don’t know the full picture. Hard to judge,really. If they sound very complicated I tend to avoid them even though, in another life, I was a social worker.

Sometimes these old threads get resurrected due to scammers posting their rubbish on them.

Oops, sorry, Monica, I’m more or less repeating what you said. Lesson to me, don’t skim read 😂

Perhaps threads should be 'closed' but kept, so only the original op can add to it after a certain time. It's then available for reading but can't be resurrected unless the originator wants to update it.