[Doug Nelson]

The vast majority of forum users rely on the "new posts" page to determine what they'll read. For various reasons, this means perfectly useful and interesting threads can sometimes die an early death. Placing a post in these threads will "bump" them, and make them appear in the "new posts" page once more, calling attention to them once again and perhaps recusitating them. This has the added effect of "bumping" them to the top for those who browse the forums directly (since the default sort order is by when the last post was made).

While bumping in excess can defeat the purpose, if you find an older post and have something legitimate to add or ask it can sometimes lead to the thread finding a new life and being seen by many that wouldn't otherwise.