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Merge topic - notify the user
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Arantor

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Merge topic - notify the user
« on November 27th, 2012, 02:07 AM »
This one is more a speculative idea rather than a concrete plan.

As you probably know (or at least may have read), when you go to move a topic, you can elect to send a notification to the topic starter via PM to let them know their topic has been moved (and is off by default if the person moving the topic is the topic starter)

So, this makes me wonder about merging topics and whether it should do the same. It gets tricky because you have two topic starters, and potentially anyone who has replied to the topic might possibly deserve to be notified.

Assuming we accept the idea of sending notifications like this, I'm thinking that we'd offer to send messages to the following:
* the topic starters
* the topic starters and anyone who replied to the topic
* the topic starters and anyone who is set to be notified on replies (note that their notifications will be synced anyway)
* no-one

Note that I don't see any practical way to send the same message (e.g. with a reason) to everyone, because the tone and so on would likely be different, e.g. you'd have "Your topic <xyz> has been merged with..." plus "The topic <xyz>, which you've replied to" and "The topic <xyz> that you're watching..." so the messages would be pre-set.

This seems like a reasonable and practical compromise to me.
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spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Merge topic - notify the user
« Reply #1, on November 27th, 2012, 02:18 AM »
I like it

I vote for notifying the starter, those who replied, and those who are being notified.

Verbiage:
The topic <---> has been moved to/merged with <--->
Your are being notified because you are the the the topic starter, have replied to the topic, or asked to be notified of updates to the topic.
Stick a fork in it SMF

Arantor

  • As powerful as possible, as complex as necessary.
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Re: Merge topic - notify the user
« Reply #2, on November 27th, 2012, 02:28 AM »
I was actually thinking about making it moderator's choice, rather than generating potentially a ton of notifications, e.g. If you had a topic with several hundred posts being merged with another similarly sized topic, that's potentially getting into the thousands in terms of setting up messages (email or PM, PM would possibly b lighter in the long run)

spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Merge topic - notify the user
« Reply #3, on November 27th, 2012, 02:41 AM »
Ah the * are the choices to be made by the moderator. I though you were asking which option would be best... blame the rummmm. And I did figure these notification would be sent via PM vs email.

I was also going off being active in a topic, then poof it's gone or seems like it's gone only to eventually find it merged.
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