Honestly, we'd probably just be fighting a losing battle. The songwriting forum is kind of like the name that tune forum, in that most just turn a blind eye to it, but I'm sure it can be frustrating when you actually contribute to that part of the forum.

Yeah, why is it almost every single n00b who comes here posts in the name that tune forum once and then just leaves? It never even occurred to me to post there... seemed kind of stupid.

They come here specifically to get their questions answered, and most want nothing to do with this site besides that. I'm sure google has something to do with it.

Yes, sigh, this is true. I usually post in their thread encouraging them to ask a mod to merge their separate songwriting threads, following the rule, which actually benefits them because it consolidates all their views, increasing the chance that people will visit their thread and give feedback.

And then I send them a private message.

Aaaaaaaaaaargh...the bandwidth!

Hmm lame. I guess it's not harming the site though

Sometimes, for a trifecta of bandwidth-guzzling reminders about the "one thread per songwriter" rule, I post one reminder in the songwriter's thread itself, a second one in a private message, AND a third one in a visitors message to the songwriter. :) And sometimes the recipients *still* don't merge their songwriting threads...but sometimes they thank me because they didn't know the rules.

This issue of bandwidth reminds me of a question I've had: when, if ever, does MusicBanter delete old posts? For example, do dead, closed threads eventually get deleted to make more cyber space for new and scintillating posts such as mine? Much as I like to read through The Unfan's old posts, why don't deleted members' posts disappear automatically, too, although doing so would disrupt the flow of conversations if anyone looks back through time via MB like I do? After 20 more years, there will be quite a mountain of posts if few get deleted.

There are two options a mod has when they choose to delete a thread. There a soft delete, which removes the thread for everyone except the mods, who can still control the thread, e.i. read, undelete.. etc. And then there's the hard delete, which removes the thread completely from the forums. (as far as I know) There's been a few attempts made at cleaning up the forums, so don't worry, we have plenty of space. Deciding between the two just depends on the mod and the thread/content in question. Same goes for deleting posts made by a user that's been banned. We won't delete a post unless we have to.

Edit: Oh yeah, there's also the Graveyard.

It would be possible but we won't.

If you put post restrictions you just get more people spamming to reach those restrictions.

I've said it before and i'll say it again.

Restricting access by post count DOES NOT WORK.

Plus that way people couldn't create introduction threads.