# Moderator tools: two suggestions
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [December 1, 2018, 6:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257 "2018-12-01T18:04:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2018, 6:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257/1 "2018-12-01T18:04:40Z")
1. Sometimes I am unable to reply to flagged comments. I can approve, disapprove, or ignore the flag but not reply comment to other moderators. Aside from Spam, of which we have very little, I almost always wat to leave a note for other mods. I think the reply option should always be available.
2. when selecting posts to move to a new or existing topic, sometimes there are comments relevant to both the old and new topics. The ability to somehow duplicate, quote, or link to the original comment would be helpful. This is similar to a previous suggestion about [cloning comments](https://meta.discourse.org/t/requesting-4-moderation-tools/94680/7). We are currently getting a lot of flak from users because they have a hard time following topics following a split.
2.5) related to 2, but with a lot of wishful thinking: it would be cool if there was a way to view the tree structure of topics and splits, which sometimes get quite deep on our forum.
Thanks for your time! 🙂
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257/2 "2018-12-01T23:27:10Z")
> [@Dan\_Eastwood](#):
>
> I almost always wat to leave a note for other mods. I think the reply option should always be available.
Start a new discussion topic in a “staff” category which only moderators and admins (aka staff) have access to.
> [@Dan\_Eastwood](#):
>
> The ability to somehow duplicate, quote, or link to the original comment would be helpful.
Bidirectional links are already placed in the split topics. You could add more links if you like via an additional post.
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257/3 "2018-12-01T23:55:06Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Start a new discussion topic in a “staff” category which only moderators and admins (aka staff) have access to.
Yes I could do that. Sometimes the is a reply button to along with flag response options to start that discussion for, other times there is not, and it’s not clear why there is any difference. Is it possible to always have the option to reply?
Edit: I just found the Staff Notes plugin, maybe that’s what we need?
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Bidirectional links are already placed in the split topics. You could add more links if you like via an additional post.
Yes, and sometimes I add additional links too, but in a long thread that information may get buried.
I think the difficulty is that “what happened” when a topic is split is not transparent to users, and this causes frustrations when then can’t find what they were looking for. I’ve had that trouble myself. I realize this is not an easy problem to resolve.
To rephrase my 2.5 suggestion, if there were a way to view **threaded topics** when topics are split, much in they same way we might view threaded comments, that might help. Users would have a top-down view of topic structure to help navigate thru splits.
I’m not sure how merged topics fit into a threaded topic structure, but I think it could be worked out.
Anyway, thanks for your time. 🙂
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2018, 11:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257/4 "2018-12-01T23:59:56Z")
> [@Dan\_Eastwood](#):
>
> I just found the Staff Notes plugin, maybe that’s what we need?
That’s a good idea, if you want to annotate a particular _person_. I wasn’t clear that’s what you wanted from your post, but if it is, that’s definitely it.
> [@Dan\_Eastwood](#):
>
> I think the difficulty is that “what happened” when a topic is split is not transparent to users
That’s odd, because the moved posts cause individual user notifications pointing to the new location. Just click or tap on the notification to be taken there.
> [@Dan\_Eastwood](#):
>
> threaded topic structure
No such construct exists in Discourse, nor will it ever.
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257/5 "2018-12-02T00:13:49Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> > I think the difficulty is that “what happened” when a topic is split is not transparent to users
>
> That’s odd, because the moved posts cause individual user notifications pointing to the new location. Just click or tap on the notification to be taken there.
I agree it is odd, but its also a common complaint. Users are sometimes confused by topic splits. I know I’m grasping at straws trying to find ideas that might help, but that’s all I can do. I can’t change the users.
Thanks again for hearing me out. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2018, 12:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moderator-tools-two-suggestions/103257/6 "2018-12-02T00:20:46Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> No such construct exists in Discourse, nor will it ever.
OK, but to clarify, I meant topic header only, without any posts or comment content. I agree displaying comments in a threaded topic structure would be a very bad idea!