also, as a general note: i don't feel too happy about the anal fixation about "clean threads" that i believe is increasing in this place recently. (that's not talking about you, jay, it's a general remark.)

while a forum does need a certain amount of organization, it's still mainly a place to talk, to chat. like mailing lists and irc. i don't believe a forum makes a good structured knowledge base. that's what a wiki or even a static website is for.

so maybe we should be more relaxed with threads moving completely off topic after a while or duplicate threads. in spite of all these things i've always found information i was looking for here. you don't search for thread titles and then read through 1038 posts hoping somebody will mention your specific problem, do you? you do a keyword search and get single postings as a result - no matter what thread they're in.