thread Closings.

[kylos]

I'm curious about something. With the new threaded view, joining two similar threads can be done without causing a discontinuity of thought. I've seen this done before, and changing to threaded view allows one to essentially read both threads separately. At times, I've noticed that a similar thread was simply closed with a concluding reference to another thread and all conversation in that thread essentially lost since it is hard to insert pertinent information into another thread that's already developed. I noticed this once between a macrumors and a macbytes thread. Does that have anything to do with joining threads? And if so, wouldn't it be easier to simply let both threads develop independently since they are in different forums? Not trying to do the job of the moderators here, just curious about why some threads are joined and others are closed. That was the original intention of this thread anyway.

 

[Rower_CPU]

I think it's simply a matter of preference of the moderator.

In my case, I will typically close a brand new thread with only a few posts that mirrors another thread, but join a topic that has two well established discussions already in place by the time I come across the duplicate. The one trick with joining threads is that folks that aren't subscribed to the one that gets subsumed in the joining process will have to search for the other thread since there is no pointer left to direct them to where the discussion went - this is another reason I sometimes opt to close a thread with a link to the other discussion.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I think it's simply a matter of preference of the moderator.

In my case, I will typically close a brand new thread with only a few posts that mirrors another thread, but join a topic that has two well established discussions already in place by the time I come across the duplicate. The one trick with joining threads is that folks that aren't subscribed to the one that gets subsumed in the joining process will have to search for the other thread since there is no pointer left to direct them to where the discussion went - this is another reason I sometimes opt to close a thread with a link to the other discussion.

Any way of sending a "message" of some sort of the "joining"?

 

[Rower_CPU]

Any way of sending a "message" of some sort of the "joining"?

Not that I'm aware of, and PMing everyone who has posted to the 2 threads is out of the question.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Not that I'm aware of, and PMing everyone who has posted to the 2 threads is out of the question.

Just a thought, could a post be made to a thread that is closing that it will be joined with another thread and a link provided?

 

[Rower_CPU]

Just a thought, could a post be made to a thread that is closing that it will be joined with another thread and a link provided?

That would only be effective if everyone is subscribed to the thread via email and would receive the notification - and it would be a hassle to post, close the thread and wait for people to see it for a while and then go back and join the threads.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

That would only be effective if everyone is subscribed to the thread via email and would receive the notification - and it would be a hassle to post, close the thread and wait for people to see it for a while and then go back and join the threads.

Cool, don't know how the forum software works. I was thinking along of the lines that i get notification with each thread that I post to when there is a follow-up posting.

 

[G5orbust]

eye told me to come here and post about my thread being closed too...

Anyway guys, I created the "What song are you listening to" thread over in general music discussion a few days ago. Lo and behold, after checking and posting in it the night before that I wake up to find it closed. Perplexed by this, I contact eye, who said that it was closed for "potential for spam". While I can see that as a legitimite concern, the thread had not exhibited any spam activity, with most of the >1 post amounts coming from people commenting on the music choices of others. When I created the thread I thought it would be an interesting place for people to share their current music interested and comment on the music interests of others and during its short lifespan as an active thread it accomplished just that.

Here's the thread if you want to take a look.

 

[Sun Baked]

eye told me to come here and post about my thread being closed too...

Anyway guys, I created the "What song are you listening to" thread over in general music discussion a few days ago. Lo and behold, after checking and posting in it the night before that I wake up to find it closed. Perplexed by this, I contact eye, who said that it was closed for "potential for spam".

Ah yes, maybe arn should bring back some of the more memorable threads, like...

What color is your underwear?

The "Pie Throwing" thread, Sam *****'s "How do I Post" thread, etc.

 

[King Cobra]

As far as I'm concerned (which I'm not), these two threads are going straight to hell:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/71795/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/71978/

because they have increasing tendencies to incite flamewars or start insults.

Those are the types of threads on the forums (fairly pointless and not entertaining ranting) that should be closed.