I think the term would be "necrobump"

That's from old school forums where posting to a thread bumped it back to the top of the feed and thus thrust old info prominently into everyone's view again. You won't get that same bump effect with most sorts on Lemmy. ("New comments" sort might work like that though? I'm not sure exactly how that's handled.)

otherwise everyone has moved on

It's pretty rare to get much of a response even after just 24 hours or so -- not just in terms of comments, but even for upvotes. I think after that point, posts are usually so far down people's feeds that almost no one sees it any more. That probably also discourages most people from replying since basically no one will see it. (Maybe the poster of the thread or comment you're replying to will see it, but probably almost no one else will if it's more than a day or so old.)

Some people do dig through community archives and/or user profiles -- particularly after a new thread is posted -- and they'll occasionally upvote old posts, but they very rarely comment.

I'm not against necrobumping in certain contexts. If I have a tech support question, I can promise you I'm still clueless after 5 months. Also a niche creative project can take over 5 months to find it's audience, and creators are usually happy to hear feedback.

Oh man, that brings back memories of necroposting on old IPB forums

I still get necrobumps from reddit on year-old comments despite having left reddit. It's weird.

People only posting on new things makes a place seem less like a community and more like people are just being trendy.

Side note, necrobump sounds like a great name for a heavy metal band.

necrobump

What a horrible name for "people responding to a thread that is older than a mayfly".

Suggesting something a few months old is "dead" is especially churn-y; like "Ahmahagawd, that thread is, like, SO last-heartbeaaat". Ensure the voice dissolves into an indolent vocal fry for best effects.

People only ever replying to new things makes it seem less like a community.

Do we have a remind me bot?

Every once in a blue moon, I'll skim over my saved posts and comments. Even more rare, occasionally I might respond months later if I think I apparently forgot to respond when the thread was fresh.

Just a couple or few days ago I responded to a comment from like 6 months ago where someone asked me for a link to a project of mine.

Regardless, that's very rare, even for me.

I sort by new and always mean to go back to look at old things but usually forget. Guess i need to hit the hot button occasionally.

Why? What happened 5 years ago?

Well you blew your load in 11hrs.

I kudos answers constantly. Half the time it's my own, which means my account knew the answer and posted it, but I remember none of this.

I may be multiple personalities, and I may not even be the smart one.

"sort by recent comments" and "show posts I've seen but with new comments"?

Both settings I don't know actually exist.

It almost time to celebrate the 12th birthday of "can splunk stop being absolutely fucking clueless and claiming their stupidity is a legal problem only they suffer" ticket about authenticated yum repos.

Usually I find my own answer to a Stack Overflow problem I'm having today, but I wrote it two years ago. And that means I'll have that time machine one day. Woot!