Sometimes a new thread is preferable to reviving an old one.   For example, the topic of transferring vinyl/cassettes to CDs/MP3s has been covered many times, and there have been many discussions of what to plug in where and what is the best software for the purpose. However, software changes faster than traffic lights and last year's answer may no longer be valid.

Newcomers don't know how to use the filter - nor are they aware of the existance of the Newcomers Guide Permathread. For that matter, unless it has been seriously edited since the last time I looked at it, that Permathread contains a lot of information that is no longer valid - and just try to find the statement about researching a topic rather than starting a new thread...I couldn't. There is something in there about searching for lyrics. I'd really rather see the same question asked and politely answered half a dozen times than see someone who could be a real asset to our community driven off by some curmudgeon saying "that question has been asked before. Don't you know how to look things up?"...with the implied "you dummy".