A compilation thread is the one you see with a title like "Post your new spells here!" These threads are usually started by new posters, probably for the purpose of being able to say, "See? My thread is X pages long!" In any event, they claim to help the boards by getting things in one place. However, I'm going to countermand that notion.
The very idea of a compilation thread is flawed in that they quickly become a meaningless jumble of totally random stuff. There is no organization to the thread, and no organization can be possible without the first post becoming an index page itself. What does this mean? It means that instead of helping the boards by putting homebrew stuff in one area, it simply throws anything and everything into a pot and stirs it up. The only way to find anything you want is to read the entire thread, which is exceedingly tedious when the thread reaches a dozen pages long.
It also makes the Search function essentially useless. If the Search is run for a particular kind of monster, spell, weapon, whatever, the search can only return the thread that the key words are found in. Which means that it can only tell you that what you want is buried somewhere in a 50 page long thread, at 30 posts a page. The entire reason the Search function exists is so that the user does not have to dig through some 1,500 posts to find what you want, but in that it should be able to find exactly what you want.
On top of this, some posters (or at least I do) actively avoid compilation threads, precisely because they are just jumbled heaps of unrelated content. If someone wants their new spell, or monster, or PrC, or whatever to be seen, it should be given it's own individual thread. This means the Search function can actually find your material, and people who are interested in that sort of thing will be able to find it quickly and easily. Someone who is playing a Cryomancer (cold and ice based arcane caster) who wants to find new ice spells is not going to want to dig through 50 pages of a compilation thread to find one or two spells, its more trouble than its worth to find the diamond in the ruff. However, they *ARE* going to be quite likely to scan the board itself to see if there are any "Coldspike, My New Ice Spell!" type threads.
If you want your material to be seen and used, you have to make sure as many different people as possible see it. If people have to work above and beyond the norm for a search just to find your new goody, they most likely will simply give up or decide it isn't worth the trouble.
So, bottom line, compilation threads make it less likely that anything posted in them will actually be seen by people on the boards. For the new members, please do not start compilation threads. No one is really impressed about how long, or how short someone's thread is, or with how many posts you have. Please do not make life on the boards more difficult simply to stroke your ego with "I have a popular thread!" It doesn't work that way, and it is really counter-productive.
It's essentially like the D&D Miniature line. For people that just want to collect all the minis, that's fine. For people that actually want to use the minis in a real game of D&D, the randomness makes the line worthless unless they can be found second hand individually, so you know what you're getting. The same thing applies here. For people that just want to read random stuff, sure, compilation threads can be great. For people who actually want to be able to find what they want and use it in game, the compilation thread essentially makes everything in it useless. After all, if you need an Elven Fighter mini, which are you more likely to do? Buy a bunch of randomly packed minis and just hope you find what you want, or browse the individual minis in clear packaging until you see what you want, and then buy that? Same deal here, people that are actually interested in using your homebrew material are actually less likely to actually want to wade through a compilation thread to find it, not when its faster, easier, and more productive to search through the normal threads and pick out exactly what they want. Not read through page after page of things they have no interest in at all and hoping they stumble across something they can use.
Nice work!
On a different but related topic, my pet peeve is people asking for comment who frequently edit their original post. Edit is for minor corrections; if you want to post something 'different', add a new post and leave the original post alone!
This goes double for 'please comment on' threads, which are the usual culprits. I read post 1. I then read post 2, whose comments now make no sense whatsoever because post 1 is completely changed from what it looked like when poster 2 wrote their post.
Having a centralized area where I could consider the various spell suggestions of other players saved me a huge amount of time searching. By noting which spells seemed to pop up the most, I got a very good grasp on the magic system in 3rd ed.
The thread also helped me build a bit of a reputation here on the boards, which was nice. My bloody ego isn't going to feed itself, you know.
Even today, I am learning a huge, huge amount about Artificers from this thread with tons of useful Artificer material. I was secretly worried that Artificers were fun but weak when the Eberron campaign setting first came out; thanks to this thread, though, I have seen the light.
So, compilation threads have seriously helped me improve my game, from the first few weeks I started posting on WotC up to the present. There's no way I could give a thumbs down to the idea of these threads.
Post 1:
I guess what I'm really asking is whether a Sorcerer/Fighter combo is ever a good idea?
Post 2:
No, Sorcerers do not "pull swords out of their hat", not unless they have some specific ability to. Furthermore, what does your second paragraph even mean? "greater than 10 dire elephants" in what way?
Post 3:
Post 4:
Well, now, I find that rather uncalled for. I try to clarify something and you bite my head off as well as referencing some very dubious rules. Where exactly can the "spellburn check" rules be found? Also, your link is broken, but I manually typed it in and, while that's an interesting site, I don't see what it has to do with this discussion.
What's going on there? Editing your post into something completely different confuses new readers to no end.As for compilation threads, while they may make searching more difficult, they are somewhat of a fast-track for those who just want to browse some spells or whatever with no particular goal in mind; it skips past the rules questions and the arguments over balance.
And then there are the compilations that are just anecdotes; the stories of how your characters died, or how they killed the BBEG, or whatever. These aren't meant to be tools for others; they're just brag boards which I, and probably others, find interesting to read.
A better idea, I think, is recommending that anyone who starts a compilation thread should also edit his post to include a linked index on the first page. This would make them much easier to use.
As the owner/creator of the Sublime Compilation thread for any and all builds using that PrC, I think it's gone fairly well -- nothing too out of bounds was posted, just some darn cool builds. So, I guess I must respectfully disagree with your treatise that compilations are bad for the boards.
Different strokes for different folks.
Cheers,
Zeb