Re coherency: The jumbled up business aside, I don't think one can expect "perfection" where there are a larger number of posts. I was thinking more in terms of individual contributions and I think Mudcat (and perhaps other places) has weakend/become more diluted in that respect over time - I don't think posters like say Rick F and Bruce O have been "replaced" for example.

I'd agree with MTed over the Wiki ideas. It's one I've been toying with on and off for folkinfo for some time now but have never get got round to doing further research.

As a tech note, the printer version does display the posts in order. The reason for this must be one is sorted by date and the other messageid (just the difference of a single word in the query). Whatever, until the matter is resolved, it is perhaps better to give links to the printer version for older threads.

Re the off putting bit: I'll admit that I tend to be terse when reeplying to these requests (and I don't think I've ever been a great "Hi Welcome to ..." type person) but that's just me and I don't intend to be rude or see it as rudeness just giving a link.

I suppose some of it might come down to what other forums one has used. I rarely use them but in some tech forums for example, it's not unkown for a user (even a newbie) to be expected to have read the user manual, any "readmes", FAQs, "known issues", etc. before giving a clear detailed report of the problem and could well find themselves on the receiving end of some serious stick if they didn't.