Move duplicated topic automatically

Product Support

AI-generated summary

In a discussion titled “Move duplicated topic automatically” under the Support category, RozvM asks if it’s possible to automatically merge new topics with existing ones when titles match, rather than showing a “Title has already been used” error. Johani explains that duplicate titles are blocked by default and suggests the issue stems from user behavior—members circumvent the restriction by altering titles with punctuation. Johani notes no built-in feature exists for auto-merging, but recommends using admin warnings or commissioning a custom plugin via the Marketplace category or developing one using plugin guides. pfaffman proposes an alternative: instead of blocking, show users a clear link to the existing topic, encouraging them to engage there instead. RozvM acknowledges the suggestions but notes user behavior remains hard to control, thanking Johani for the input.

1

Hi all!

Is it possible to automatically move/merge a topic into another one, if both have/gets the same title?

Thanks for any help!

2

Welcome to meta @RozvM :wave:

I’m not following. Duplicate topic titles are not allowed by default. If you try to post a topic with a duplicate title you’ll get this error

duplicate topic title error
duplicate topic title error927Ă—169 5.63 KB

Can you share examples of the duplicate titles you’re having trouble with?

3

The basic problem is that the members getting this error and because of that they adding (for example) punctuation marks to the title of the topic. As time goes on, more titles are messing up because of that. Sure you can enable duplicated titles but as many people say, it can be unsafe and very frustrating to navigate.

So the question is:
Instead of displaying the Title has already been used message is it possible to merge the new topic into the matching (existing) one?

4

Thanks for the explanation :+1:

This sounds like a behaviour issue rather than a software issue. The software can have guards against accidental duplicate titles; however, if the users try to work-around that by adding punctuation and such, then they’re abusing the system.

As an admin you have the ability to give users warnings if they keep doing that.

Going back to your question

no, there isn’t anything like that in a default Discourse install.

If you really want this, you’d need a custom plugin. You can create a topic in the Marketplace category if you want to hire one of our community freelance developers to create that plugin for you or you can have a look at our plugin guides if you want to do it yourself

5

How about supplying the user with a link to the topic that they should be reading rather than creating a new one? Like:

image
image617Ă—154 23.5 KB

That’s a pretty clear call to action. It gives the user a chance to go to the topic that already exists (or read it and see what’s different about what they want to say).

6

This service is enabled but as @Johani said, you can’t modify the behaviour of the users. :confused:

Thanks for the ideas @Johani :+1: