Long thread vs. Short thread
 

atencorps' recent post about an easy way to download long threads made me think of some of the long threads here.

While some of the threads are awesome beyond words and I don't care that they are long, some grow too large and become unwieldy. Occasionally, a thread is resurrected from a few pages down that I've not seen before, or have seen in some passing. But, it is too immense for me to summon up the effort to bother wading through it.

We all, I suppose, strive to create threads that others will contribute to "forever", thus increasing our own lusty collections in that particular vein. And there certainly is something to be said for convenience in having all of a type of picture "in one place". But some threads are simply daunting in scope.

*shrug* I'm sure not making any suggestions about this topic. I guess I was just curious about your surfing habits here on the board. :)

I try to "thank" all posts that I have seen. This helps me keep my place on the long threads.

I wish thread authors could break up or combine their threads at will. It would be great to be able to link up two separate threads and combine them as well as break up ones that have gotten too long.

Klondike

*puzzled* I've been "thanking", too. But, how's that help you "find your place"?

The problem with 'threadnoughts' is that they render the search-function useless. That is, you can find the thread containing the keyword you searched for, but you can't find the specific post. If you want to know if you're reposting old material, or if you remember seeing something in a thread at some point, it's nearly impossible to find it if it's in the middle of a 20+ pages long thread.

Of course, the opposite can be a problem as well, multiple threads clutter up the board, makes it hard to keep track on read posts, and also renders the search-function useless, because you get hundreds of hits when you search for something more general.

So, personally I favour large threads up to a certain (debatable) size, at which point it gets archived and another thread is started if there is more relevant material to post.
Also, although I know for myself that getting thanked in a post when I contribute is very nice and motivating, we should attempt to use the thanks-button as much as possible, to reduce the number of posts just saying thank you. It will make the threads with multiple posts with content less cluttered and hard to read.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

I agree - when I look at "new posts" - I open the thread and click first unread - only yo find all I am reading is someone comment "wow" or "hot" or hope you have more - this clutters up a lot!

When you search, you can choose to "Show Results as Posts", so you'll only see posts that contain the word(s) you were searching for.

Fango

As an alternative - you can input your search term, and if results appear in a long thread, you can open that thread and then use the "search this thread" link to search for your terms within a particular thread.

There are several threads that are staples and I check them every day. I say post until you run out of content.