Please allow me to impart my experience on this topic.I am a moderator of both the Delta SkyMiles and Hilton HHonors forums, as well as a Senior Moderator, which simply means that I am tasked with moderating forums that have no moderator formally dedicated to them.

In the Delta SkyMiles forum, as well as in my role as Senior Moderator, most of the threads I merge are specifically upon request — usually as reported to the moderators — and only if it makes sense. I rarely merge threads on my own.

When I first became moderator of the Hilton HHonors forum, the one issue of feedback I received overwhelmingly is that there were too many threads pertaining to similar Hilton HHonors properties. There were greater than 100 threads regarding Hilton HHonors properties with the word “Paris” in the title, rendering searching for information about Hilton HHonors properties in Paris virtually useless. After we spent months cleaning up the Hilton HHonors forums, we received positive feedback overall for our work. Still, Hilton HHonors FlyerTalk members said that we merged threads too quickly. Except in obvious situations, the Hilton HHonors forum moderators now wait anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks before merging threads, and this policy seems to have worked.

By the way, the topic of merging threads in the Hilton HHonors forum has led to this “gem” in the The Merged Merged Threads Thread:I will be the first to admit that the policies we moderators have in the Hilton HHonors forum — which were created as a result of the feedback we receive — will not work in every forum. However, it is a study of what can happen when moderators and FlyerTalk members work together to create as close to the optimal experience as possible.

I believe that “mega threads” would not be as much of a problem if the Search function within a thread of the vBulletin bulletin board software were more powerful and faster, but that is simply my opinion.