The problem with multi-threading is obvious when one comes along and DOES search a song. When there are pages of results for one single song it gets pretty hairy trying to extract and make sense of the actual information in the plethora of threads. It's much, much easier to sort it all out and find the gold in all the raw ore when there are fewer threads. The tone of the concerns expressed here is not churlish, but FRUSTRATED.

And it's not a matter of bandwidth-- it's the difference between researching a song in an organized way and finding it among a bunch of slips of paper flung all over the place.

I guess it boils down to this-- does one see Mudcat as a place to quickly check in with members' knowledge and get a fast (if not correct or complete) answer, or does one see it as a place where one does one's own homework to see what has already been contributed?

Google and fastspeed internet tend to have created a value in present society that makes us feel like "quick" equals "good." But say I come along this afternoon and ask, in a new thread, "Tell me about xxxx song." Say someone who has heard misinformation about its authorship and origin comes along and answers me, assuring me it's Trad, public-domain, and comes from the UK. Say I record the song on that say-so, the American author catches wind of it, and demands legal satisfaction-- now assume that the TRUE information about the song was here all along, and I didn't bother to check through all the older threads? Or say I tried to, but there were so many I gave up and went with the quick-fix that told me what I wanted to hear?

Who would be the prat, then?

It's time we got over using Mudcat as a live-chat or a specialized Google, and used what has been so wonderfully cached for us by people who went before us. IMO people ought to take some responsibility for finding what they need, themselves, like adults.

~Susan