Post merging
 

I know, flame away, but can i say that I *hate* this wretched post merging thing!

There are occasions when I feel that two posts are needed, and the damned thing merges them into one. I've seen it on another sites too, it is the spawn of the devil.

Unless you've got a serious problem with people spamming their post count up, I can't see the point of it. On most boards it'll just confuse people. It's hard enough getting people to understand web forums at the best of times.

Worse still, on here, it leaves an edit note telling the world you double posted by mistake! No I didn't!

Grrrrr!!!!!

I think its better having a organized board then having something that keep getting repeated over and over again on 10,000 other threads.

Its done to keep spamming in non hack threads down, as well as bumps before their time.

I think it's a great feature, it keeps the forums looking "neat".

It's a nice feature, helps at lot. Xenon did a great job.
But in our forums we have an option for our moderators to allow doubleposting on singular threads, you are right Mark.B, sometimes is neccesarry.

Lol i actually 'abuse' it.

Many times i make a post, and then after submitting i want to add something. Instead of editing my post, i simply reply, it will be automerged anyway :D

Where can I get this, with an option for moderators to choose for it to apply to their post or not, and having the auto-merge not take effect after 24 hours (would suck if you couldn't EVER bump something)?

It seems I am in a minority, but I still despise it.

If there's a major issue with people doing this then fine, but most boards I visit, it's not a problem. If someone was spamming their post count up, the mods would be on to it.

And even if this hack is installed, a determined postcount spammer will simply post in different threads.

Yeah, same here :D

Whilst it may well have a useful purpose on this site, I think it's an awful idea that confuses the hell out of people who are new to web forums. It's also quite rude, as often your intention is to reply seperately in two different ways to two seperate people. When you do, the inference is that you've broken the rules and/or accidentally double posted, which is insulting.

Test 1

test 2

Obviously admins are exempt. ;)

lol.

Erwin you spammer :)

I still think it's ridiculous. Moderators should be able to control that sort of problem at their discretion.

It's the kind of feature I'd expect to see on an IPB or phpBB board run by silly teenagers who get off on their stupid power trips.

It's totally out of kilter with the type of board usually seen running vB, that is to say, ones with a generally more professional attitude.

LOL - chill out Mark - and no - we ain't removing it from cf either :p

Well I agree with you Mark, though I am seemingly the only one.

On my board, it is very professional. And if someone was spamming I could easily shut them down one on one.

Sometime there are needs to reply seperately. If someone asks a lengthy question with multiple parts, I may answer it in seperate posts. One for clarity, and Two because I have to write up each answer seperately which may take time, and the OP could have a partial answer already.

Also if multiple users post seperate questions, I may answer them all in one post or a couple, depending on my response length.

While this hack does work at fixing certain problems, the root cause of the problem still exists. Deal with the real problem and you won't need to force merge posts.

well, we installed it, because a lot of users just ignored the rule to not bump threads within 24h

that's not our fault, now we have installed my hack, and obviously it got better immediatelly.
there are a few exceptions, for example in releasethreads it's still possible to doublepost, so actually i really don't see your problem.

every forum and admin of the forum is different, their are restrictions and some dont have restrictions. But when their is time when stuff on a forum gets out of control especially on a forum that has over 30,000 people online at a time it is praticially impossible to control all at once when they are double posting, posting useless, spamming etc... it gets really annoying going over and over and over again the samething thing telling members to stop, editing the posts or whatever you have to do. But installing a merge system or a double post limit it will cut your time in half of what it takes for you to control a member down and it will give the admin less things to do then fusing with people that cant follow a few simple rules.

If you dont like how a set of rules work on a certain forum then I dont see why you keep visiting. Everywhere you go you will be facing some type of rule you cant get everything your way.

im not pulling you away from this site im just stating my opinions for you to get a better understaning of why people put certain stuff on their forums.

i am that user lol

i like it in some forums but not in the ones where i abuse it but that's simply because i don't beleive in 24 hours per bump i think it should be 12 oh well.

yay.

ps. i got it installed on my board and there i couldn't live without it.

well 12h per bump is annoying, when users just visit a board once a day ;)

patience is the key in life these days ;)

wise words :)

12 hour bump is too short, 24 hours should be the minimum, most board staff aren't free all day/every day to answer stuff.

Maybe it should make it possible to bump 1 post in 12 hour, for the second post you'll have to wait 24, the third 36......

That way you will have to choose your bumping very carefull.

And it will stop sabret00th from bumping his own posts every 12 hours :D :D :D

You may find the Quote function in vB to be quite handy.
I personally find it annoying to have to read multiple posts answering to multiple questions, because I have to
a) scroll further to get to required info
b) scroll back up if I forgot the question thats being answered
Instead of, if people would just use the quote function, I could immediately see the question and the reply...


//out

Add me to the list of folks who do not like this feature.

I have what I think is a legitimate reason to bump a thread (Update on a project I've been working on) but the merger has decided it can't have its own reply. As a result my post gets ignored because it's not a "new" post and I lose potential input on the project.

If you don't like that reasoning, then take into account that in 100% of automerged doubleposts I've had, it completely screws up the spacing in the post, which makes for a bad reading experience.

I shall disagree with the presence of this feature.

Then wait 24 hours and then post.. it gets bumped then