I rarely stop following. I feel like if we’re going to get on people for asking a question that was asked a year ago (or months ago or whatever) then there should be some way for the question -that I was once interested in— to come back up.
I mean, suppose you’re new here and you see that someone has already asked about your favorite bands or guitarists. You do the due diligence thing and don’t ask the question again but hop onto this really old thread and write about a guitarist that a couple of people have mentioned but not many people seem to be familiar with, etc. It’s actually a great answer. And you think, “Cool, there are guitar lovers here! This is a cool discussion! I’m gonna like it here!” And you know when the question was asked, but you don’t really know how spaced out in time the answers have been. You don’t really know if the discussion’s over or not. Then it seems like you’re being ignored.
So, say you figure you’ll ask the question again fresh because maybe it’s old and people have stopped following it and some of those people aren’t around anymore and you’d like to hear what newer people think about this question. And what do you get? Somebody or another will post a link to the question they’ve already answered and ignore you all over again.
I’m not trying to get on anyone’s case who’ve done this. Sometimes it’s completely appropriate, but sometimes it’s not. It’s just not very welcoming.
I still follow questions so when I see someone chiming in late in the game they can get at least some response. The only time I have actually stopped following was when the question degenerated to talk of fictional creatures being discussed like they’re real and threats so often that the “removed by the moderators” stamp started coming up often.
I know. I have entirely too many thoughts.