Recently there have been a number of posts lamenting the fact that the same old questions get asked again and again, often by newbies who fail to use the forum search function.

In the days when Usenet newsgroups were actually useful the same problem was tackled by the FAQ - a llst of Frequently Asked Questions and answers. For example, here is the most recent FAQ for the soc.culture.thai newsgroup:

soc.culture.thai FAQ

We have something similar on TV -- the pinned thread. Unfortunately, these pinned threads often get so long with posted revisions, corrects and additions, that they become less useful and, I think, often ignored.

It might be better for each sub-forum to have a pinned and closed FAQ thread that would be updated and corrected periodically. This might have the effect of reducing the number of repetitive and unnecessary threads.

Then again, who would volunteer to maintain the things?

I think forums will always suffer from repetative topics... but then this is also the forums life blood... if people could come and find out questions from FAQ posts, they wouldn't need to register... thus no new members and the forum becomes quiet..

Now I have often complained about repetative topics, but normally when the same topic is on the same page as the new topic.. that is annoying...

But in reality we have to accept this is all part of the forum experience...

I'm not saying that some sort of FAQ wouldn't be good, but people only need to go to www.thaivisa.com to look for information anyway, and would it stop the reposts...? I don't think so..

totster