Threads seem to constantly being merged. The 8.33 kHz thread has become 51 pages ! , 500 posts. No one in their right mind will read all that (I would never do that). Just saying.
Equally, some are split.
Personally, I would rather have 51 pages on 8.33 than ten threads of five pages.
I merge very similar threads for the following reasons:
If a search on EuroGA for 8.33 finds 10 threads with very similar names and content, nobody will read them (the “too much choice problem”) and if they tried to read one they have a 10% chance of finding an answer to their question 
Also a lot of people come to EuroGA following a google search and a single thread is better because if they then post something it will at least end up in the right place.
The 8.33 situation is dynamic and a thread which started in say 2012 is probably best used as a place to post a question.
Finally, we do get longer threads on EuroGA because of the European participating audience. On say a UK-only site the useful posts would be a small fraction of what we get here (due to most GA activity being intra-UK only) and the rest would likely be “filler material”.
Merging very similar threads does take up a bit of my time but I do it only where they don’t overlap in time, otherwise the result would be a mess, obviously.
There is a problem with merging: it messes up the post numbering. We have no solution to this at present. But the posts are obviously in the right order.
BTW, the number of posts per page that you see is according to the page length set in your profile, but you need to be logged in for that to work.
Timothy wrote:
Personally, I would rather have 51 pages on 8.33 than ten threads of five pages.
Why? It’s not like everything in there is the same. You cannot shopoutout a random set of posts. Posts were started for a reason.
I get the logics behind merging threads. But a thread with 500 posts is simply way too much IMO.
I think Peter is doing the right thing merging threads (at least as long as the threads being merged are separate in time).
When you search are you able to limit the search to the thread?
It’s not like everything in there is the same
I think they are the same – or at least the sections I merge end up containing similar questions, points and arguments.
Posts were started for a reason.
Yes – usually they were started because the poster didn’t use the search function
However, until very recently I could merge posts only one at a time. So there were many similar or identical threads and I could do nothing about them, and somebody wanting to ask a question had to pick a thread to post it on, randomly. I now have a semi bulk-merge function which makes it many times faster so I can do proper cleanups.
When you search are you able to limit the search to the thread?
You can limit it to the forum section e.g. Hangar Talk only. The full details of the search facility are here. However, I think that combining suitable keywords (with an uppercase AND) and possibly with the suspected poster’s name is a very good way to find stuff.
@Peter, a tree view of a thread would help solve this problem. People could then see questions and answers and further branch questions and their sub-trees very easily. I used to see many such tree-viewed bulletin boards, but nowadays they are rare. They were soo helpful. What’s happened?
I wonder if some wikis might be the solution? At least where there are definitive answers or solutions in the thread. There is a huge amount of valuable, relevant information all over EuroGA. It would be nice to have the best information about various topics in just one place. For example, there could be an 8.33 wiki linked at the top of the thread which contains a snapshot of the latest/best information on the topic.
I know it’s something else for Peter to curate though, but perhaps some trusted forum members could also participate.
a tree view of a thread would help solve this problem
David is the expert on usability but I see problems with e.g. this approach
The above example is from dpreview.com which I occassionally read and IMHO it is horrible.
I wonder if some wikis might be the solution? At least where there are definitive answers or solutions in the thread
That would be a massive task, and completely impossible. Basically you would end up developing a parallel version of Part NCO, Part-this, Part-that. Then it would need to be maintained by a specialist. And, like with the regs themselves, nobody would be able to find anything. I can’t find stuff in EASA regs – well not with a certainty that I found the current one, or found the whole story. I know just one guy who can find EASA regs: @bookworm and you can ask him if he wants the job 
