Thinkpads Forum

Suggestion: when a moderator decides to merge topics together and/or to move a topic to a different branch/part of the forum, they should leave the original topic subject in place, with a link to the new location. And perhaps give a brief statement why (for what purpose) it was moved.

This is the 'norm' in most other online fora I visit and it results in more transparency. By just merging or moving a topic without a link reference, it basically disappears .. which is very confusing indeed for people following the said topic/thread.

Generally when I've had to move/merge a post I PM the affected member to let them know where their post has gone. As it's usually only the one post that's involved, I don't feel there's a need to leave a "shadow" post/thread behind. In fact, that's the "norm" here; we don't use the shadow topic option when moving posts/threads.

When there IS more than one post involved, most of the time it falls under two classes:

- the topic/thread is a duplicate; in which case, the new thread is locked in place and a note is left behind stating this.
- the follow-up posts state that the original post is in the wrong forum or that there's an existing thread with the same topic; in this case, the original post is moved (and the user notified) and the remaining post(s) in the thread are moved out of public view. We encourage the mods NOT to delete any posts but to move them to a special forum that's not viewable by the general membership.

rkawakami wrote:Generally when I've had to move/merge a post I PM the affected member to let them know where their post has gone. As it's usually only the one post that's involved, I don't feel there's a need to leave a "shadow" post/thread behind. In fact, that's the "norm" here; we don't use the shadow topic option when moving posts/threads.

IMHO, not leaving a "shadow" post behind is a less-than-smart idea, for reasons explained. But, that's my $ 0.02...

rkawakami wrote:When there IS more than one post involved, most of the time it falls under two classes:

- the topic/thread is a duplicate; in which case, the new thread is locked in place and a note is left behind stating this.
- the follow-up posts state that the original post is in the wrong forum or that there's an existing thread with the same topic; in this case, the original post is moved (and the user notified) and the remaining post(s) in the thread are moved out of public view. We encourage the mods NOT to delete any posts but to move them to a special forum that's not viewable by the general membership.

I reread your 2nd scenario a few times and still find it lacking in transparency. IMHO, a simple issue is made fuzzy and too complicated for no good reason whatsoever. The simple remedy is to always leave a "shadow" post behind when you move or merge a post/thread. Transparency is (should be...) King. Again, my $ 0.02 worth...