I think SteamGifts should have a functionality to merge threads available only for moderators, so that they could merge duplicate threads in order to keep everything in one place. This way everyone could continue their discussions about the same subject in a unified place without us having a huge spam of threads.

5 years ago

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Nope, it will become a mess which no one could comprehend.

5 years ago
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How? Think about the 8-10 threads we have right now about the Steam phishing situation. They're all talking about the exact same thing, what would be hard to comprehend if they were merged?

5 years ago
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Well, it could become a mess if threads aren't merged promptly: imagine for instance, 5 thread with each 50 replies at the time they're merged ^^

5 years ago
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They could just be merged by date, while keeping the oldest OP.

Another way I can think of is listing the different OPs under the main OP. And then if a comment was merged from another OP, that comment explicitly shows which OP it belongs to.

I'm sure there's a way to do it without creating a mess, since there are some forums that allow this.

5 years ago
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I'm sure there's a way to do it without creating a mess, since there are some forums that allow this.

I think the key here is that those forums have a lower activity compared to the amount of moderators, and that threads get merged quickly enough so that they only have a few replies, if any at all, before a merge is done.

5 years ago
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First - there is the main post - how do you decide which one to keep and which to demote to a post?
Then the messages - we will keep messages in a reply chain intact, but what do we do with the order of the message chains? Sometimes, a message only makes sense when put in the context of one thread, but not when mixed together with the content of different threads.

5 years ago
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  1. Earliest post is kept by default, or the mods can override by manually selecting one of them if it makes more sense. That is common in most forums that support merging.
  2. Every other, former thread (demoted post) is then gathered at the top, with their own thread replies indented once inwards (recursively throughout all subposts). If necessary, extra visuals could be programmed so that it would be clear that these posts are merged threads and not regular replies.
  3. Finally, all regular replies to the thread that is kept stay as they were, including any future replies.

If it is too hard to organize 2. before 3., just sort them by date (default) and mark the former threads so they're easy to distinguish from regular posts.

5 years ago
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It's standard to default to the most well-constructed/most informative thread, favoring the earlier posted thread in any circumstances where a clearly favorable choice isn't present. For the current phishing topic, Defi's thread would have been the intuitive choice as the primary thread. Some forums simply merge by timestamp alone, though I believe those typically were just the ones which treated thread posts identically to normal posts, which made the structure less favorable for allowing for selection among topic posts.

Then the messages - we will keep messages in a reply chain intact, but what do we do with the order of the message chains?

Those would sort by creation time, either as a result of default forum settings (as many forums sort replies by timestamp to begin with). or by deliberate code construction to that end. This is similarly standard. There are some forums which simply append thread replies in sequence, based on the timestamp of the thread topics involved.

I'm not pushing for a merging feature, mind you, I'm just noting that established practices already exist for the points you mentioned. Whether those practices have merit or not, I can't say, but I never noticed any detriment from the forums that utilized thread-merging (which is a pretty normal feature for forums to have, so it's not uncommon to come across).

Kotor's approach to the current matter was likely the ideal way to approach things, though not every spammed topic is necessarily going to warrant staff making an official PSA for.

5 years ago
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5 years ago
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You'll trade "keep everything in one place" for "people generating drama because their Unique View on Things should not be unified with the Plebeian Repetition of Banalities". The only "merging" worth anything is mods being available and allowed to quickly close threads because they're duplicating topics that already have better ones, but SG isn't really that kind of forum.

5 years ago
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Not sure I understand what you mean.

5 years ago
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View attached image.
5 years ago
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Deleted

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5 years ago
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That sounds good. :)

5 years ago
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looks like the merge is happening manually. :)

5 years ago
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Not really, they just closed the other threads.

5 years ago
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+1
love flood, hate spam !

5 years ago
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Yes! Definitely!

5 years ago
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I think it's way too complicated. Imagine if this thread suddenly had twice the amount of comments, being slotted in at random points. Now imagine that person reading those comments and seeing that some are completely random seemingly.

It jumbles them up a lot and it might cause confusion. Though with some threads, I can see it working. I'm not against the idea, I'm just wondering how it could be implemented.

5 years ago
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Merged comments could be highlighted to indicate that they came from another thread.

5 years ago
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Sounds nice, but it creates more work for mods... and probably more confusion. It would just be better to write a script that automates the process.

5 years ago
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How would a script help in this scenario? A script would only change the forum for the person using it.

5 years ago
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Actually, every forum I've ever worked on had this option. It makes life easier for mods. All I do right now on current Xenforo site is click a box next to each thread I want to merge, go to the drop-down menu, select "merge threads" and done. It is literally 30 seconds work. They don't have to go to each thread and lock them all. I would actually be mad if someone took away this option having always had it available. LOL!

5 years ago
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