I'm in favor of deleting messages that were originally meant to serve some practical purpose and don't serve that purpose any more. For example, "refresh" messages don't serve any purpose once someone has posted a following message, or after 24 hours has passed. And when you combine threads, you can end up with links that link to their own thread! (The first time I saw this, it confused me. I also wondered why I was seeing the same question get asked a second time in the same thread, even though it had already been answered. Especially when the question was answered politely the second time around, with nary a sarcastic remark! That's just not NATURAL for Mudcat!)

Now, if you deleted somebody's OPINION about something, I can see why they might get mad. Facts are expendable, especially if they're redundant. Opinions are sacred!

I also think you should feel free to correct any spelling errors you find. Just be sure you don't "correct" British spellings to American spellings, or vice versa—if the original was correct according to the language of the person posting it. If someone fails to find something because he's looking for the wrong spelling, well, that's what the thread Frequently misspelled/confused names is for. If people are going to fail to find something, I think it's better if they fail because they looked for the WRONG spelling than because they looked for the RIGHT one.

Another thing I think should be allowed is to delete lyrics if they are substantially the same as something already in DigiTrad or in another thread. "Substantially the same" means the words are the same, but the spelling, punctuation, and line breaks may be different. You could replace them with a link to the other copy.

I'm not trying to create any more work for you, Joe. I'm just saying you should feel free to do these things if you feel like it. I don't think any reasonable person would object. But then I can't always predict how reasonable people will be...

I have a couple of questions:

When you combine 2 threads, do the messages stay in chronological order?

If you delete thread 2 after moving all its messages to thread 1, what happens to the links in other threads that formerly pointed to thread 2?