Just a suggestion, but I was thinking it that when it comes to merging topics, it might be better if the mods didn't merge topics that were made a few months before.

For example, I often see new topics that are merged with older ones that are often made over a year before, and I find it a bit unfair. It's a little awkward to go into such an old topic and just start posting, it seems to be much better to just start a whole new discussion without the merge.

Perhaps if the old topic has been inactive for (let's say) 3 months, it would be better to just leave the newer topic as is.

I hope that makes sense.

I agree completely.

It's completely understandable, and hell, definately VERY good when new topics are merged with other recent topics, but when a forum is inactive for awhile it's pretty much dead and soforth a new topic shouldn't hurt.

Hell if it's bandwidth that's the problem, how about having the forums deleted if they're over 6 months old with no replies or anything?

yeah it happened to my favorite movie thread. I searched ten pages back to see if there was a thread like it and there wasent so i made it and then it got merged. Its not fair

A good point Disinterested. A lot of the new threads touch familiar ground to previous threads, and the answers can often be found by a simple forum search instead of creating a new thread. However I agree that new opinions on subjects are always refreshing to read, and if you do a search for certain topics in here, it’s most likely you will find more than one thread devoted to it.

The only time threads should really be merged is when two recent threads have been started on the same subject, such as two threads wishing the same person a happy birthday. New threads are not meant to be merged with old ones.

I'll make sure and pass this along to all of the moderators.