Azizi, a permathread is simply a Mudcat thread that has been designated as allowing for editing and reorganizing the information in it. Anyone can add to a permathread, but it's up to the permathread's editor whether to retain that post, delete it, or move its information into a specific slot within the permathread. If you will do as Joe suggests-- look at the ones we already have-- you will see them in various states f evolutuon/editing and organized in different ways as their editor chose to organize them.

The biggest one we have is the FAQ permathread-- one way it functions is that Joe Offer, who edits it, will reply to Mudcat FAQ-type questions as they come up, and every once in awhile he will take the question and how it was answered and edit it upthread into a section where it fits with other material. Or he might edit out a question and answer that are already covered by the preceding material in the permathread, after the person who asked the question has had a chance to see the answer.

As I recollect it, these were named "permathreads" because at first, the idea was that they would stay permanently at the top of the thread list. Later, it was found that there were too many good ideas for such threads to keep all of them always at the top, and now just the main ones-- including a permathread that is an index to all of them-- stay up top, in a drop-down box at the top of the daily thread list.

At the start of permathreads, editing was usually done as a partnership betwwn someone who made the decisions about the content, and a Mudcat clone (site volunteer) who had the tech kow-how and site policy know-how to do the actual moving around of stuff. The Spirituals Permathread was like that-- I made the decisions and Mudcatter Jeri did the tech work of implementing them. Over time, it got to where most folks with good ideas for permathreads were given the tech tools to do their own changes, as I was for the Spirituals permathread-- like I became my own little Help Department for just that one thread.

And that's what Joe Offer is describing, upthread.

~Susan