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Public area => The Pub => Features => Topic started by: Arantor on May 20th, 2013, 08:52 PM

Title: Splitting a topic, keeping the origin
Post by: Arantor on May 20th, 2013, 08:52 PM
OK, so this came up on sm.org earlier and a topic that was split ended up losing some context because of it.

I wondered, then, if it would be of use to keep the origin topic in a split. In the newly split topic, keep a reference to the original topic and provide a link back, ideally not as part of the message body itself.

We have per-message data storage, it's no big deal to get that and stuff a link to the old topic inside the first post of the new one.

I figure that if it wasn't part of the message body, there's no way it could be accidentally deleted by a moderator.

Thoughts?
Title: Re: Splitting a topic, keeping the origin
Post by: Nao on May 20th, 2013, 09:52 PM
Good idea!
Title: Re: Splitting a topic, keeping the origin
Post by: Johnny54 on May 20th, 2013, 11:06 PM
I am a moderator and split topics quit often to get a off-topic discussion in there own topic.
So I don't like having a non deletable link to the original topic in the splitted topic simply because there's no connection (off-topic).
If this option can be chosen at splitting, and/or the entire option be switched off by the admin. then it is oke.
Title: Re: Splitting a topic, keeping the origin
Post by: Arantor on May 20th, 2013, 11:26 PM
Yeah, that's something I hadn't quite figured out what to do with.

It's one of those things that will likely be useful to a lot of forums and a pain in the backside to a lot of others - but I think it's useful enough for the bulk that it be a feature included.
Title: Re: Splitting a topic, keeping the origin
Post by: xrunner on May 21st, 2013, 01:04 AM
I would tend to agree that it would be useful. Many times trying to do a good split is not always easy if a lot of posts have accumulated. Also the rumblings and so on leading up to the reason for the split are contained in the posts that would be left in the original topic - i.e. you can't always do a perfect split anyway - so I would lean toward this being a useful way to see how the split topic came to be.