That said I think even if you had an old Mudcat, as the volume of informative musical threads increased, indexing methods would have been introduced to help those who come to the site looking for information.

Perhaps so but would you agree there is a differnce between introduction and imposition? And accept that there are different requirements for the music related threads and the non-music related ones?

Where 'indexing' may indeed be a useful tool for the music-related threads - it is less useful for the non-music related ones. The assumption seems to be currently made that methods that may work for one should be applied to the other.

There does not seem to be enough real recognition that the two are now separated - BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT. Where it may be thought useful that music-related threads are clearly titled - there is less of a need for the non-music related threads to be so. In fact some of the most creative contributions to our forum are now made in the titles that our posters come-up with on the non-music section.

Is there really any need to 'index' - 'combine' - 'consolidate' etc any of these non-music related threads? They may be judged by some to be irritating or many other things - but all that needs to be done in such cases - is to ignore them until they fall off the bottom.

Encouraging all the current passing of judgement upon fellow poster's contributions - is not helpful - for unless there are any serious reasons to impose censorship - the contribution has as much right to remain as posted - as any other contribution. And it will remain on our forum - whatever persoanl judgement may be placed upon it. The object of our forum is discussion. The only choices that any poster needs to make is whether to respond to what is being said or to ignore it...........

But whatever 'indexing' may be thought to be required - and for whatever reason (other than what may be judged to be harmful seriously offensive postings etc) - can be undertaken perfectly adequately - without automatic imposition by our anonymous volunteer fellow posters.