Here's another, related problem: Lots of newbies (and even some oldbies who haven't figured out the Search feature) begin by starting whole new threads of the form: "Has anyone ever stayed at the _______ ?" Where the hotel being asked about is something like the Westin Miyako Kyoto, the London Hilton Paddington, the Westin Times Square NYC, etc., i.e., a very well-known, heavily discussed hotel on FlyerTalk. Or, "Starwood hotels in ______?" Where the city is a major city such as London, NYC, Chicago, etc.

In other words, new threads are started every day on topics that have been posted on dozens, even hundreds, of times before, in some cases within only a few days (or hours!) prior.

This wastes human and computer resources and makes it more difficult for those who DO use the Search feature to conduct their research on the ever-proliferating number of threads covering their topic. And how many times do you think that people who have stayed at a particular hotel are going to keep re-posting their experiences when a newbie comes along and starts a new thread on that hotel?

This is only one set of examples, of course. Whenever exciting new promos come out, there are multiple threads started about them. And so on.

Very often, it's much better to just find an existing thread and (if necessary) reply to it (thus bumping it up) rather than start a whole new one. But people who are new to FlyerTalk don't always realize that.

A partial solution might be to disallow the starting of new threads by newly-registered posters, until some amount of time has elapsed -- say, two weeks, or whatever seems reasonable -- with the user being prompted to search the existing threads on FlyerTalk if they are seeking immediate answers. Of course, this will frustrate some people, but it might have a net benefit overall.

The growth of FT has accelerated enormously (well over 40,000 registered users, and scads of new ones registering daily) and the problems associated with such growth may require implementing new rules or limitations, such as suggested here, to cope with this growth.