Hi All,
I know how to move a post from a topic to another, but this feature remove the original post from the first topic, whereas I would like to maintain it there. My goal in fact is then to edit the two posts (one in the first topic and the other in the second one) by leaving the part of each one concerning its own topic.
Is there a way to achieve this?
Thanks in advance.
6 Likes
What you are describing is that you want to edit the first topic and create a second topic with some of the information that you copied from the first topic. What I recommend is that you edit the first topic and create a second topic that includes some of the text from the first topic.
3 Likes
I see this too on our community Q&A site. The situation generally when a post (either the top one in a thread or a reply) should be split into two. It’d be nice to quickly do that in one step — or at least two — rather than creating a new post, copying stuff over, changing the ownership to the original poster, and then editing the original, and then somehow manually linking the two. And it’d be nice for high trust level users to be able to easily do this.
5 Likes
Yes, Matthew got my point.
I often need to duplicate one post in two posts because the content is related to two different topics, both alredy existing. So I would like that the post could be simply copied from the first topic to the second one (and not removed from the first). Thus, after this, I could easily remove the unrelated text from each of the two posts.
2 Likes
We’ve had to split posts and re-post it to another topic many times. It’s usually
-
edit and cut; - save the edit;
- copy a link to this post;
- go to the next topic and make a reply by
pastingthe cut material; - changing ownership;
- copy a link to this post;
- return to the original post, click
Editand paste the link to the moved material. - Save and done!
I hate it when someone has comments to 3 or more topics in one post. 
Thank goodness for my multi-clipboard so I can copy both text, links and images. 
7 Likes
Can this be made into a feature request ticket? It is something I as a moderator of our community would also quite frequently need.
3 Likes
How do we envisage this working from a UI standpoint?
1 Like
I had given this some thought, but the problem with splitting individual posts/replies pretty much requires a dual pane editor - open to 2 different topics. Ouch!
What helps me in this situation is having a multi-clipboard where I can cut whatever needs to be cut, save that, save the original topic, then go to the new (or 2nd existing topic) and start pasting in that. I do write down the original poster’s username for each clip so I can change the ownership as I paste them into the new or 2nd topic.
From this topic title, it’s asking how to split only a part of an existing post into a new topic. I realize that we have the feature to move an entire post/reply to a new topic, but that’s not possible for splitting a post.
My only solution I could think of would be to have the move to a new topic incorporated as part of the select and quote function. Select text, the popup has two possible actions: quote or move to new or existing topic. Then click on one or the other. 
1 Like
I think the easiest would be a two step process which would involve a “split post” functionality.
Altenatively, when selecting posts, next to (select+replies|select+below|select there would be a mew button “split and select” which would open an editor that would enable the splitting. Probably some custom markings like ~~~ that would work like this:
A part of post that will stay here
~~~
this will be splitted into a new topic (copied there and removed from here)
~~~
this will stay here
If ther ewas a gui way. ie. drawing a rectangle over the part of post to be splitted, it would be perfect but no idea if it is reasonably possible in a browser.
4 Likes
Just add a feature to duplicate the post. Then the “admin” can do 2 edits.
6 Likes
Being able to duplicate a post between two threads would be hugely beneficial. It’s simple, straightforward, and easy to fix up.
2 Likes
Oh! But there is, and Discourse has a feature that does exactly this — and I just used it right now. You can select part of a post to quote. Or, if you have permission, you can select a section to edit.
This could be extended to a third option, Split Post.
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Just to flesh out the feature a little bit more, here’s what I’d imagine.
I think a reasonable limitation would be that you can only duplicate the first post in a chain of split posts. So then the UI would look something like:
3 Likes
You know, if that checkbox would state:
Duplicate first selected post (and hide the original)
Then it’d unify (and accurately describe!) the current behaviors when moving an entire topic (including the topic post itself) into an existing thread. In such situations, the checkbox would be checked and disabled, so you couldn’t uncheck it.
Given that you need to go back and edit things anyway, it kinda makes sense to hide that original while you work on the new thread.
2 Likes
If one does not check the Duplicate first selected post, the first post is hidden from that topic as it has been moved to a new/existing topic. It is replaced with a notice about the post having been moved.
By checking the Duplicate first selected post, the first post is duplicated, with the first post left intact where it is along with a notice that it (and replies) has been moved to whatever topic.
If a post is going to be hidden as in the 1st scenario, why would it be necessary to “duplicate” it since it would no longer in the original topic?
1 Like
The point is that as an moderator/admin, you can go back and unhide a post. That’s why you’d want this — you’d go back, edit the off-topic commentary out, and then restore the original post.
I don’t really feel strongly about tying together a “hide” into this behavior. It was just interesting to me how this is already how moving a topic post behaves.
1 Like