Here's my problem with mega threads.

(I'm going to reference it with a thread which neatly shows the problem. This is not meant to be a dig at the forum mods, it's just one thread which I am aware of which shows one of the issues with hotel mega-threads).

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...a-rosales.html

This is a hotel thread about a hotel which hasn't been stayed in much. The thread commenced in 2003. Between 2003 - 2009, there were five posts in the thread, all of which asked questions about the property, and all of which went unanswered. As a public service (and it was entirely fortuitous I found this, I did a search for Bogota across FT and noticed there was a thread about the hotel I had stayed in), I posted a review of the hotel in 2009. So we've had 6 years of a thread ostensibly about a hotel, but in which there was no concrete information provided to those seeking information.

But of course, because there is a mega-thread, then everyone assumes that there will be information on the property in the thread, so unless they are particularly interested in it, they don't bother to read the thread and contribute answers to the questions. Then we get a bit of interest in it following my review, a few folks stay there, or admit to staying there, but by June, this year, we are back to having questions go unanswered again.

I would guess, on most forums, a thread with 0 replies would have some folks looking to see if they they could help out in some way. But a question in a mega-thread which goes unanswered is lost for ever... you have to be interested in the property to notice that someone needs help.

At the other end of the scale, the popular or well known hotels can spawn threads which are hundreds of posts long. If I'm looking for information on a particular aspect of a hotel (and not just a general review), I really don't want to read through hundreds of posts which are unrelated to my query. I'm almost forced to ask the question, which may have been asked before, because the information is not that easily found in a mega-thread. And of course, if no-one answers... I'm stuffed because the question might go easily unnoticed, or lost in the deluge.

Mega-threads can be great for storing information of a general nature about a particular property. But they are often not so great when it comes to being able to find very particular information, or sometimes get a question asked and answered. And that goes back to - what is the function of FT?