Just wondering: Are all these newly created Frankenfiles consisting of hundreds of pages and thousands of posts usable? Who could ever read it all anyway?

Yes, there may be reason in special cases to do this, but the danger is that the unique angles, flavors, and identities of the original individual threads get destroyed. Interest flags. Then . . . death.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that activity on this site has lessened since all the merging started.

This thread should be merged with Zimbabwe dollars drop 10 billion zeroes. they both contain "and"

That's pretty funny, berechia.

Another pitfall of merging occurs to me: A particular thread may have a group of members who've been visiting it routinely and engaging in long-lived discussions. Merging that thread with others may, in various ways, disrupt those discussions.

I feel like activity on the site has decreased, but not because of the merging of threads. I've been mostly a lurker here, and it seems to me that the quality of posts has decreased with the influx of new people over the last year. Many long time posters seemed to have disappeared just as many new people started trolling and starting threads on topics that had been well covered. Not going to speculate too much on why, but maybe they're too busy growing food, stocking ammo, etc. Heineken, I'm not talking about you here, I've been learning a lot through your struggle with JBs and obviously you are still posting. All that said, I do share your other worry that the threads as they used to exist are being made unreadable by the addition of new threads that cover the same territory.

I agree. Not to mention it's kind of annoying to suddenly get all these notifications that there have been replies to a thread you're following...only to find that it's not a thread you were following at all, but one that got merged with one you were following.

These PHP boards tend to get really slow once a thread gets too long. Perhaps because every message in the thread must be accessed from the database each time someone clicks on the thread. Whatever it is, long, popular threads (like "another record") are sometimes impossible to open.

I've been listed as the author of THE Peak Parenting thread and I'm not even a parent! And I didn't even write the OP!

The threads SHOULD be merged because people keep talking about the same topics over and over, but post new threads instead of bumping up old ones. What's happening here is we're building up a database of discussion and it will be more valuable in the longrun to cluster duplicate topics into singular threads.

The activity has decreased only in the last month as the price of crude and gasoline have gone down a few percents.

It will pick up. Oh yes. It will pick up.

Maybe we are now post peak posting!

Why, precisely, should they be merged?

In what way is a single thread with 100 pages superior to 10 threads, each with 10 pages?

In each instance, one can access the information by either:

1) Searching

2) Brute force, looking at each post

Are threads from back when being merged with new ones? Thought that was only done when multiple threads on the same subject were started.

I enjoy the stuff from back when, often they're chock full of good contributions from people who don't come around anymore. Gives a different perspective.

We should listen to Leanan in re: slow servers. I think if I ever massively screw up my back like pstarr and have nothing to do for a week or so but read I might try and compile a Best of Drumbeat. Some great debates there but it's hell trying to find 'em later.

Over at http://slashdot.org they have the opposite philosophy.

Threads are automagically bifurcated into subthreads.

Leave it to nerds to prefer complexity.

I haaaate thread merging here. Let peoople have unique conversations about the same old stuff over and over again through the years. Then when I want to read about Shanny's take on doomsteading from back in 06, it will be easy to find.

Who...wants...to...read... a hundred page thread? Bah- If its over 10 no way...

However- Pops was the big proponent of Thread Merging and my philosophy is- don't mess with Mods- they are doing this work for free- if I wanted to step up to do wome work I could- so I only have minimal right to complain...