I'm not going to 'merge' them as such but I try to move mostly dead threads (little or no activity) that have a wealth of information into the C14 Wiki area... Problem is I need to get time to do it as it's somewhat of a manual process. Using search helps some but we don't use the same terms for what we talk about. That plays heck with the search engine (digital and human).
Indeed. Searching can be frustrating for any number of reasons. Terminology is the primary cause of failure- when people use different words for the same thing. I can very much appreciate when people can't find something and try to help (on several forums). What I don't appreciate is when people never even try to search and, instead, just start a new thread on a topic that has been discussed over and over. Those not only waste time, they create a lot "noise" when searching.
I found it especially irritating when the settings in this forum used to actually COMPLAIN when you tried to post to a thread not even a year old- encouraging the user to create yet another thread/topic. Thankfully it has been adjusted to be a year:
"Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 365 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic. "
Of course there are cases where a new topic/thread is indicated, but it generally better to pull back existing stuff so there is continuity. (Yet there can be a lot of noise in threads too that make it hard to perform research... even this post is noise, since it is not related to "tire monitors").