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branching off discussions?

fredrikhimlenfredrikhimlen
edited June 2006 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
I thought about discussions for long (wrote lots of discussions I've NEVER posted as of I think it's a way to silly idea), and what I can't understand is why there isn't a way to branch off a discussion when some guys goes widely off topic. Something for a add-on? Ok, I very often go far away from the topic in my comments, almost like feeding up for a new discussion. I thought there had to be a function that posts a notice in the discussion that there has been a branch off. I wonder how deep such function has to go in the system. I even can't find a easy way to do that thing. (And I realy need a easy simple way, otherwise I just comes there with one more quarterfinished project wasting space)

Comments

  • blizeHblizeH ✭✭
    This would be a great feature, for example on board there's a lot of games discussion but I try and keep it all into one thread per platform (with a few exceptions for big news or w/e) but that doesn't stop people posting about the Nintendo DS in every other topic on the board, and it'd be ace to be able to move the posts into the DS category!
  • MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    It's possible. All you need to do is put a link next to each post (for the admin) which (i think this would be the easiest way) copies the text from the post into the new discussion form (where they'd need to pick a title and category), makes the discussion with that text as the first post body, then hides the discussion in the origional thread (better than deleting it i think). Would that do what you wanted? It shouldnt be too tricky (i'm not doing it, though :P)
  • automatthiasautomatthias
    I'd rather have a tool for discussion split and merge.

    Splitting: Select some of the posts, give them new discussion topic and category.

    Merging: Take a discussion and make it a part od another existing discussion.

    If you ask if this is a necessary funcion, I'd say YES. My forum would be a total mess without those functions.
  • MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    I really dont see how 2 discussions merged into one could ever be considered 'not messy'.
  • automatthiasautomatthias
    My forum uses to have multiple discussions on the same topic, happening at different times and all of them are messy. So I just merge all of them into one. Comments are sorted chronologically and discussions take place at different times, so no interlacing occurs. The result is one messy discussion made of multiple messy discussions. Advantage: less messy discussion list.
  • MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    But if you merged 2 discussions which were happening at roughly the same time...
  • automatthiasautomatthias
    edited June 2006
    If I merged two such discussions, they'd be interlaced. Or whatever you want to call them. The point is, they never happen at the same time! For given topic, only one discussion is active at one time, the other ones are dead. For example, this discussion is about the same thing, but nobody writes there at the moment: http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/1985/ The reason is that if one wants to talk about it, she/he comes here and doesn't search for other discussions about the same thing.
  • ToivoToivo New
    simple test. how do you "bracnch", "split" or "merge" discussions in real world.
  • MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    What?
  • automatthiasautomatthias
    edited June 2006
    @Toivo: wrong way of thinking. My forum is not just talking. My forum is sharing experiences and finding solutions, so once a solution was found, others should be able to search for it and find it. I want each discussion to have an informative topic (for example a drug name) and have the discussion about this drug. It happens that somebody mentions other drug and the discussion drifts away to the other topic. In such case, I need to split the discussion and create a new topic with new drug name. My forum is more read than being written on. It's mostly people who search for specific solutions, and once they find them, they're satisfied and go away. If there are drifting discussions and misinformative topics, people will be confused, unable to find information and frustrated. So I certainly *do* want to be able to enforce the topic-and-content integrity.
  • ToivoToivo New
    edited June 2006
    minisweeper, I wanted to say that forums are just an extension of real life discussions, whatever feels unnatural in real life situations should not have place in forum software. how do you "branch" discussion with your friends. This verb feels so mechanical. but yes, automatthias, people have different styles and different needs
This discussion has been closed.