I realize this is mostly a problem with us, the individual members, and not the forum itself, however is there anything that can be done about the numerous duplicate or nearly duplicate threads?

Of course the best solution would be that members do a quick search before starting a new thread, but in this regard XMTS is not different than the rest of the internet, I doubt that will happen. So could these threads be merged by a moderator when it becomes obvious that they are basically the same thing?

Most of the time the threads I am thinking about are not question and answer type threads, althoguh at this point I bet just about every question has already been answered. I am thinking more about the current event type threads that are generally well intentioned but end up being duplicates.

The most recent example would be St. Andrew's day. Although there were a few different ones when D-Day piper Bill Millin passed away, and quite a few announcing the St. Ninian's day tartan and the papal visit (before the discussions went on different tangents all were pretty much identical).

Just a thought. If it is too much work I understand. However this is a very active forum and there are usually 3-5 pages of threads with new posts when I log on.