As the ASP.NET forums became less and less useful, I've seen a corresponding trend that seems to be responsible. Quoting the rule against necroposting, users with moderator ability have gone back *several months* to delete answers that were months newer than the questions. I understand that the necroposting rule is important to keep users from bumping old issues to the top of the list, but it's also shortsighted and stupid. And allowing it to be enforced after it won't do any good (i.e, the article has paged off the forum) is pointless and destructive. Look at the status of the 'top' user on the ASP.NET forums, XII. The majority of his points come from DELETING POSTS!

It's absurd to reward destructive behavior. I used to post on the ASP.NET forums, answering questions about GDI, as that was my specialty. I've had over 40 posts deleted by XII, many of them deleted months or years after they were posted, and nearly all of them being the sole answer to a previously unanswered question. Most did *not* qualify for deletion under any forum guideline.

Needless to say, once I realized that contributing to the forum was pointless, that posts were being deleted for personal point gain, it became difficult for me to help anymore.

I strongly suggest that (a) posts don't move up the list when they are added to, unless it is within a certain time frame. (b) Encourage users to answer unanswered threads that rank highly in Google results, regardless of when they were posted. Right now, most google results pointing to the forums link to unanswered threads - threads that people have probably tried to answer multiple times, their work shortly deleted by a moderator for being 'too late'. (c) Either allow post deletions to be disputed, require multiple votes, or ban moderators when they become destructive for personal gain.