On Thu, 2 Nov 2017 08:05:11 -0700 (PDT), Nancy2
> wrote:

>Oops, my really bad...I almost always note the date before responding, but missed it
>here. Sorry. (Slowly backing out of thread.....)
>
>N.


There is really nothing wrong with responding to an old thread. It can
make for some funny responses as history moves on and the original
comments are not particularly relevant, but sometimes, they are.

No harm. No foul.

Dropping old messages is not new in Usenet, but I, myself, have
noticed it with more frequency the past 6 months. Wild guess - perhaps
Google is playing around with code/specs somewhere and itty bitty
glitches show up, or they are testing a new use for old archives.

Deja News, which used to be the archive of Usenet, was terrific with
storage, history and search terms. Google took it all over years ago,
promising all sort of things, but nothing substantive in the
storage/retrieval process was maintained for long. There are other,
limited archives out there, but it was great when everything was all
in one place.