# Combining multiple sequential replies from the same poster?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [2014年一月9日 07:58 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845 "2014-01-09T07:58:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2014年一月9日 07:58 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/1 "2014-01-09T07:58:01Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Real-time updates](https://meta.discourse.org/t/real-time-updates/5151/14):
> [@probus](#):
>
> The forum educates in a pop-up when posting:
>
> \> It’s easier for everyone to read topics that have fewer in-depth replies versus lots of small, individual replies.
>
> But as it is, we are encouraging people to post individual replies instead of edits when adding incremental updates to their posts. Unless you have a strict question and answer type of forum, chances are you have these kinds of topics, i.e. sports forums have match day topics, apple forums have wwdc keynote following topics etc.
>
> How about combining subsequent replies (from the same poster) into one with some server side magic or styling? Sound a bit weird but it could help keep things tidy.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2014年一月9日 08:12 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/2 "2014-01-09T08:12:04Z")
The just-in-time behavior cue you are referring to occurs when users post several replies in sequence. It is _only a reminder_ and happens once per topic. It’s also configurable, of course, and can be turned off or tweaked.
Why do we do this? Allow me to illustrate:
Why is this annoying? It’s annoying because:
- I have to expand in-reply at the top to even understand these responses. Which would be fine if they were more than a damn sentence of clever-clever bon mottiness. They make me actively do work and give me almost nothing in return.
- The reply is so very short that it contains little to no “native” context, because there just aren’t enough words to capture any kind of contextual nuance.
- The ratio of metadata (post controls, author info, in reply to, response box) to content is now massively out of whack: maximum noise, a sliver of signal.
- It’s especially bad when they respond to _the same person_ in multiple individual replies, though that is somewhat less common, it’s the most clearly objectionable.
So, we show a reminder when this happens:
Now, @stienman did note that _some_ forums:
1. Forcibly combine sequential posts by the same user.
2. Completely disallow sequential posts by the same user.
We could explore some of these as options in Discourse but #1 makes me rather nervous as it is a big magical system change to submitted content.
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### Author:  [@probus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/probus)
#### Post date: [2014年一月9日 09:27 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/3 "2014-01-09T09:27:17Z")
I agree, it’s annoying to follow a topic with multiple short replies in sequence.
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> It’s especially bad when they respond to the same person in multiple individual replies, though that is somewhat less common, it’s the most clearly objectionable
But there are legitimate use cases for this. Say I wanted to post something like a [live blog from the new ipad launch](http://live.gizmodo.com/our-new-ipad-liveblog-starts-right-here-on-10-22-at-12p-1446693465) in a discourse forum. Should I write one post and edit that 100 times to add content or add 100 replies in sequence? The first option would be much easier to read after the event, but anyone following live would have to be constantly refreshing the page to see the edits. So I would naturally opt the latter strategy and add endless replies that get updated in my followers screens in real time.
As for posters just being lazy or ignorant of edit button and posting sequent replies, there are two options:
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Forcibly combine posts sequential posts by the same user.
> Completely disallow sequential posts by the same user.
Maybe we could tweak the ui to show sequental posts from the same author with less metadata overhead? Just separate the posts content with thin horizontal lines for example. Completely disallowing sequental posts seems too radical to me.
a quick ui mockup of combining posts in ui:
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### Author:  [@MaSe](https://meta.discourse.org/u/MaSe)
#### Post date: [2014年一月9日 11:16 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/4 "2014-01-09T11:16:24Z")
> 1. Forcibly combine posts sequential posts by the same user.
> 2. Completely disallow sequential posts by the same user.
If sequential replies are very short they are better to be completely disallowed because such a message stream converts forum to chat. If they are not short they could be forcibly combined because it simplifies reading and there are use cases where it is really convenient, for example, when someone replies by email.
And also there is support kind of topics like Q&A where even non-sequential messages can be combined to increase content readability for later readers.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2015年一月12日 09:44 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/6 "2015-01-12T09:44:38Z")
This mockup still has the same problem I was telling @cawas about – how do you indicate each of those three responses was an individual reply to a particular user?
Yeah, if the post does a proper quote or mentions a @username then sure it’s easier, but if they don’t?
I’m all for excess metadata suppression, I just haven’t seen a way to do it yet that doesn’t break stuff.
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### Author:  [@cregox](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cregox)
#### Post date: [2015年一月12日 12:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/7 "2015-01-12T12:53:57Z")
Yay, I was invited to the old and resurrected conversation! 😛
Probably because of my latest [post there](https://meta.discourse.org/t/better-threading-for-multiple-consecutive-replies-by-the-same-user/20116/21), right?
> Do you recall exactly why the warning on multiple consecutive posts were created at first place?
I’m glad for this. From what I read here maybe you’d love to see a good way to deal with **this** issue. Or maybe you’re just trying to dig an idea out of it.
I didn’t realize the whole point for the warning was trying to **prevent spam**. Basically **this** is the issue or “the problem” I wasn’t aware of. It looks like you’re trying to apply the just in time theory hoping you can reduce the number of such bad behaviors which, I suppose, you know it does happen a lot from some data you’ve collected.
To me the problem was just about keeping the good flow of each separated conversation, which already happens if we reply in different posts. Nothing to do with writing bad content.
But, come to better think of it, it probably doesn’t matter.
I still think this doesn’t change a tiny bit my suggestion. The image I had in my head was not limited to the mockups I’ve done in the other topic. But while I _think_ I understood better where you were coming from and I were trying again to explain it in a different way, as descriptive and explicit as I could, I decided to **drop it** (I left the point where I dropped under the edits, if you want to take a peek).
The current system already deals very well with all that stuff. It’s a bit messy to follow each single message chain from many multiple sequential replies but it’s doable. Maybe my problem was I can easily think of a scenario where it’s so complicated anyone would give up on following it. But in reality I haven’t seen such a scenario and maybe it doesn’t exist in practice.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2016年八月4日 21:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/8 "2016-08-04T21:47:25Z")
This is now complete, at least as a staff tool. Thanks @adrapereira!
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### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [2016年八月5日 09:22 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/9 "2016-08-05T09:22:52Z")
Main discussion here:
> [@Add a "merge multiple responses" admin post selection action](https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-a-merge-multiple-responses-admin-post-selection-action/14904):
>
> For users that insist on posting multiple sequential replies, especially short ones, it would be nice to have a “merge posts” option appear when you use the admin wrench to begin selecting posts in a topic, and then select a few posts by the same user in sequence: This does make it somewhat ambiguous what happens when 3 different replies “directed” at 3 different users are combined. Not sure exactly how to handle that, but for now I would just remove any explicit replies as part of t…
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2018年三月27日 21:29 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/10 "2018-03-27T21:29:58Z")
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2018年三月27日 21:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/11 "2018-03-27T21:30:19Z")
Leaving this open, as the staff wrench post merging tool is great, but not quite the same feature discussed here.
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### Author:  [@kinetiksoft](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kinetiksoft)
#### Post date: [2021年十月4日 12:49 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/12 "2021-10-04T12:49:10Z")
是我一个人这样觉得，还是 Discourse Meta 会自动将同一用户的连续回复合并到该用户最初发布的最后一个帖子中？我们该如何在我们的论坛中引入相同的行为？
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### Author:  [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [2021年十月4日 13:26 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/15 "2021-10-04T13:26:24Z")
我们通常通过选择帖子，然后使用“合并所选帖子”按钮来手动执行此操作：
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [2021年十月4日 17:25 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/16 "2021-10-04T17:25:20Z")
> [@david](#):
>
> “合并选定的帖子”按钮
我想我可以尝试一下——但效果如何？是否有迹象表明它们原本是多个帖子（例如时间/日期），还是它们变成了一个具有单一日期的帖子？谢谢。
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### Author:  [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [2021年十月4日 17:37 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/17 "2021-10-04T17:37:01Z")
它们合并为一条帖子，具有单一日期。
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### Author:  [@maiki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/maiki)
#### Post date: [2022年六月13日 23:25 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/18 "2022-06-13T23:25:00Z")
帖子已拆分为新主题：[合并聊天和主题消息](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-chat-and-topic-messages/229866)
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### Author:  [@chapoi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chapoi)
#### Post date: [2025年十二月4日 11:09 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/19 "2025-12-04T11:09:21Z")