# 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:** [January 9, 2014, 7:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845 "2014-01-09T07:58:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![probus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/67e7ee/32.png) [@probus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/probus)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 9:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/combining-multiple-sequential-replies-from-the-same-poster/11845/3 "2014-01-09T09:27:17Z")

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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:

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/2X/5/5bf974b608982d8a6f6182dc823334ce5f89fc18.jpg)

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