"Merged threads" indication?
Dec 12, 2009 | 9:50 am
#1
Original Poster
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Join Date: May 1998
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"Merged threads" indication?
Every so often, two or more existing threads are merged into one. This usually makes sense. (The two Newsstand threads on asking for orange juice on AA, one of which began life in the AA forum, come to mind as a recent example.)
The problem is that posts which were in context, in the middle of an ongoing discussion, in one thread end up widely separated by posts from the other thread(s) after the merge because the whole pile is now sorted by post time. Or, a phrase like "as someFTer said in post 8" could refer to a comment that's now in post 273.
Would it be practical, without asking our busy volunteer moderators to edit each and every post, to have some way to flag "this post was merged in from another thread" so that people will understand why things like this may seem a bit off? I don't have a fully-baked idea yet, but wanted to raise the issue in case anyone else has thoughts or suggestions.
The problem is that posts which were in context, in the middle of an ongoing discussion, in one thread end up widely separated by posts from the other thread(s) after the merge because the whole pile is now sorted by post time. Or, a phrase like "as someFTer said in post 8" could refer to a comment that's now in post 273.
Would it be practical, without asking our busy volunteer moderators to edit each and every post, to have some way to flag "this post was merged in from another thread" so that people will understand why things like this may seem a bit off? I don't have a fully-baked idea yet, but wanted to raise the issue in case anyone else has thoughts or suggestions.
Dec 13, 2009 | 7:47 am
#2
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Posts: 23,319
Every so often, two or more existing threads are merged into one. This usually makes sense. (The two Newsstand threads on asking for orange juice on AA, one of which began life in the AA forum, come to mind as a recent example.)
The problem is that posts which were in context, in the middle of an ongoing discussion, in one thread end up widely separated by posts from the other thread(s) after the merge because the whole pile is now sorted by post time. Or, a phrase like "as someFTer said in post 8" could refer to a comment that's now in post 273.
Would it be practical, without asking our busy volunteer moderators to edit each and every post, to have some way to flag "this post was merged in from another thread" so that people will understand why things like this may seem a bit off? I don't have a fully-baked idea yet, but wanted to raise the issue in case anyone else has thoughts or suggestions.
The problem is that posts which were in context, in the middle of an ongoing discussion, in one thread end up widely separated by posts from the other thread(s) after the merge because the whole pile is now sorted by post time. Or, a phrase like "as someFTer said in post 8" could refer to a comment that's now in post 273.
Would it be practical, without asking our busy volunteer moderators to edit each and every post, to have some way to flag "this post was merged in from another thread" so that people will understand why things like this may seem a bit off? I don't have a fully-baked idea yet, but wanted to raise the issue in case anyone else has thoughts or suggestions.
I don't know that what you propose is technically feasible without actually rewriting the vBulletin software itself (or applying a patch). It may very well be.
I think the [merged threads] is visible enough to address this issue if it would otherwise be a major undertaking. If it's done manually, perhaps the mods should make it standard practice so it's universally applied and not forgotten.