In 160211 MMDigest John Tuttle wrote:

> Also, Facebook does seem to draw in newbies.  However, due to the fact
> that it's difficult to find previous threads about a topic (because
> the threads aren't "topic based"), the same questions often get asked
> repeatedly.  And, while that also happens in the MMD, it's easy for
> the editors to post a link to that subject in the Archives.

Bingo, John!  Forums are poor archives.  Changes can destroy the
treasure of MMD.

One of the historic grand text archives of our time was Usenet, which
suffered in usefulness greatly due to ill-advised changes by Google.
Granted, spammers killed it for most people, but change drove people
away.

A simple text format is best.  It returns the fastest search results,
takes up the least space on servers and archives, and is the most
survivable.

Don Shenbarger