Enough. We have had plenty of ideas from you and they will be considered. Please do not repeat yourself or start arguments. At the end of the day the only thing we've had from you is complaints. A lot of which isn't constructive criticism. If you don't pay attention to what I'm saying then don't expect to get let off lightly.

1. I don't know that the majority supports it.
2. Correct.
3. That's a patronizing description of the idea. (Bonus suggestion to the mods: be polite to all suggestions in this thread, even if stupid. Otherwise, people are less eager to share.) The blurb fails to take into account two phenomena: members get annoyed when they start threads that are then locked (due to existence of similar threads), and (that happens because) most members won't search. Please, consider the idea - it has no downside, it has worked elsewhere, and (if the right 'classic' threads are listed) it will make the site more active.

Threads are only locked if members start it off with a generic comment such as 'who likes this band' otherwise they are merged with the existing thread.Not our problem, it says to do this in the rules.

Yes but it doesn't mean it can't be controlled. I did say in the original post not to comment in here if you're just going to comment on another member.

I've never noticed that rule myself, but it does become everyone's problem if it isn't heeded.

Anyway, remind in that magical thread of classics to search for other threads on subjects the reader likes or to start a new thread (which sometimes newbies are slightly scared of doing).

Could you kindly translate this sentence to English?

Which is why it's mentioned in every forum & sub forum in both the music forums and off topic forums, and also mentioned every time we do end up closing a duplicate thread.

If people still fail to understand after that I think it's more an issue their end rather than ours.

The "Global Announcement" in every forum? I honestly don't see "search" mentioned in that. And that's the kind of thing almost no one reads more than once. I could make a technical suggestion about how to drill "Search first" into people, but it seems no technical ideas will be implemented.

Yeah, people get told that upon thread closure, but that probably just ticks them off.

Near the bottom of my fantasized sticky thread, perhaps in italics:
There are many other good threads. Please search on keywords that interest you, and you might find some of them. If you cannot find such a thread, we welcome quality new threads.

Let's not forget that "classic" as sop wants to call them threads may very well be dated, and so not that relevant. Would anyone really post in a thread that said "What does everyone think of this new lot Nirvana?" or "Who thinks Dave Mustaine will stay with Metallica?"

I personally think it's a bad idea, discouraging new threads being made, comes across as lazy and also gives rise to the terrifying Attack of the Zombie Threads, which I'm sure none of us are adequately prepared for..

I think anyone who doesn't search for a thread topic before making it (I'm certainly guilty) should not be annoyed their thread gets closed or merged, but in my case I tend to be just D'Oh! and a little embarrassed. It's no big deal though and it teaches you to be more careful in future.

Also, what classifies a thread as "good" or "classic"? That's another call mods would have to make. Maybe if sop were to undertake this task himself, but I get the distinct feeling it's all just talk and he wants everything done by other people, or am I just being too cynical here?

sop´s suggestion isn´t really necessary because all those old musical-discussion threads are already freely available to any member who is interested. Either you can search for a topic, or do what I´ve done sometimes; enter a music forum and click on the "last" index page. Personally, I quite enjoy reading a bumped thread or rooting around in the archives to discover some forgotten band. As people may have guessed, I like the idea of continuity or connection with the past. The only depressing thing with old MB threads is that you´re usually reading the opinions of people who have long gone - and of course, as TH says, some threads just aren´t relevant any more:-

^ :laughing: You make that sound like too much fun, TH, stop giving me ideas !