# Highlighting the reply as linked topic functionality

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/highlighting-the-reply-as-linked-topic-functionality/276569
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [August 25, 2023, 2:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/highlighting-the-reply-as-linked-topic-functionality/276569 "2023-08-25T02:03:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 4

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### Author: ![simon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/simon/32/339122_2.png) [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2023, 5:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/highlighting-the-reply-as-linked-topic-functionality/276569/4 "2023-08-25T05:50:31Z")

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> [@Lhc\_fl](#):
>
> I realized that if everyone did it, it would greatly reduce the stress involved.

For sure. It seems that many Discourse related issues can be solved through the UI, culture, or a bit of both. It might just be a matter of finding ways to highlight the existing functionality. I’m not sure how aware people are of this button:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/4/d/e/4de57733636e765fdff0a9b2fc6a3b3ef97a05c7.png)

Also, my suggestion that when replying directly to a post, the post that’s replied to should be turned into the OP of the new topic could be solved by quoting the post.

> [@Threaded discussion is ultimately too complex to survive on the public Internet?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/threaded-discussion-is-ultimately-too-complex-to-survive-on-the-public-internet/63172/22):
>
> I wonder if there’s an opportunity for the Discourse AI plugin to automatically create a draft name for such linked replies.

It seems this has already been done. Selecting this entire post and selecting the “Suggest topic titles” option from the AI popup gives me these options:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/7/1/9/719f5a521fa3dfde5645de46fd99672c7ea3b551.png)

Those aren’t great titles, but I suspect that’s because this reply isn’t providing enough context. If I open the editor on my previous post in this topic, AI is generating some good title suggestions:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/f/2/4/f24813c474497ea27e92bb1eab3a2bd5bc912de6.png)

Edit: Starting from my first reply in this topic, I’ve essentially created a new thread by taking the conversation in a different direction from how it started. I suspect that it is fairly common to not notice that a reply has caused a conversation to drift in multiple directions until after the fact. As a regular user, the option that’s available to me to try to resolve this is to flag this post with a “Something else” flag and ask a moderator to move my initial post and the subsequent replies to a new topic. I’ll give that a try.

One last edit and I’ll leave this for others to reply. Maybe the “Move to” modal could have a “Linked Topic” option. Either that or it could have a URL input that could be used to create a linked topic:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/7/a/3/7a30827cfad868c5a45621d0365a7cbf167fc179.png)

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