When a conversation that starts in chat is worth continuing in a topic, what are the best ways to go about doing that currently?
What could be done to make it easier for people to make that transition more naturally when it feels like the right thing to do?
@Don wonders if converting messages to posts as an option would be better in some cases, and I shared some ideas for how to go about doing this today with chat transcripts using the “quote in topic” feature that exists today, while authoring a new post to kick off the continued discussion (as I’m attempting to do here).
Hello, Is there any plan to bring back the (chat messages move to or convert to regular posts) feature for staff? We've run a support (quick Q&A) channel and our members really miss the mark as solution feature and there are so many good conversations in chat what we want to move to a regular topic so that it can be even more meaningful conversations and to get more attention but I think quoting is not the best option for this purpose. Sorry if I missed the answer about this. Thanks
mcwumbly
@Don short answer is no, but maybe some other things we are planning to working on will help here? Not sure. I feel like I need to unpack this more with you to better understand the kind of behavior you're currently observing and why quote to topic doesn't feel right.
dodesz
Hi Dave, thanks for the answer. The reason I feel quote is not enough for this purpose: It won't keep the original author, I mean if I quote someone than the post will be mine rather then the original author's. If someone reply, like, etc… to it I will get the notification not the original author. The other thing if I quote more (lot) chat messages it will create a huge long OP (transcript). To reply a specific quoted message users only can with quote it again. Otherwise nobody knows which user's message replied. Quote is really good for example if I would like to create a new topic and I can use some chat messages to reference things. But If I just want to move or convert the conversation to a regular topic this is not the best I think because of these things. But maybe I have to thinking little different about it and there is a workaround or I just have to handle separate the chat and regular topics, posts.
mcwumbly
maybe I have to thinking little different about it and there is a workaround
The workaround I recommend is to think of chat transcripts as "context" for the new topic, but not the topic itself. Whoever creates the topic can/should summarize things in your own words. That could be you (as mod), or the user who started the chat discussion (possibly after a nudge from you).
I'll use this discussion as an opportunity to demonstrate what I'm talking about.
Quoting could probably be improved so if you quote part of a chat transcript in a topic, it attributes it to the original author (as we do for quoted posts).
Thanks Dave! I think I get it now… this is a kind of like Reply as linked topic feature. I think my use case is totally reachable with improving quotes. I have some ideas how would be improved it or make it more dynamic.
Chat quotes and the original chat messages could be synchronized each other and may contains some action buttons such as (reply, share or quick quote and maybe reactions) and users can interact more easily with the quoted chat messages and…
I don’t know the difficulty level to make it synchronizable but probably not the easiest one. However synchronization is only use for reactions in this case I think it can be omitted. So chat quotes only contains a share and reply button. Share is copy the original chat message link and reply is open composer with auto quote the quoted chat message or connect somehow to the quoted chat message. Just ideas…
By the way, xenforo has another great feature - to respond to any post in a personal message. This solves the problem of creating side discussions in the topic
I think showing what reactions a quoted chat message has inline is worth considering…
And I can see the value in linking directly to each message somewhere, even if it’s not a “share” button. Interestingly, the first message’s timestamp is a link, but subsequent messages are not – they should probably all be links to aid in discoverability of that feature, at the very least…
I can see it being potentially useful to have a reply button, but I think the place for me to start still is to make quoting work the way it does for posts:
Just to illustrate what I mean by this further, below you can see the difference between how we currently handle quoting text that originally came from a quoted chat message vs. another quoted post.
Is it also possible to notify users whose chat messages were quoted in a topic, just as is done when you @mention someone? In this case, for example, mcwumbly and dodesz should receive a notification.
I think it can be omitted. So chat quotes only contains a share and reply button. Share is copy the original chat message link and reply is open composer with auto quote the quoted chat message or connect somehow to the quoted chat message. Just ideas… 