# Request: UNHIDE the reply-as-linked-topic function

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/request-unhide-the-reply-as-linked-topic-function/154943
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [June 15, 2020, 10:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/request-unhide-the-reply-as-linked-topic-function/154943 "2020-06-15T22:03:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 6

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![wolftune](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/wolftune/32/103569_2.png) [@wolftune](https://meta.discourse.org/u/wolftune)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2020, 11:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/request-unhide-the-reply-as-linked-topic-function/154943/6 "2020-06-15T23:56:42Z")

</div>

There’s obviously design influence here.

If you made every reply prompt people with a forced choice of new-topic vs same-topic reply, you’d indeed reduce engagement but there’s no doubt the function would get used more.

Hide the function, almost nobody uses it.

So, there’s trade-offs. This isn’t all-or-nothing. The aim is to reach all the users who _would_ bother and currently don’t know and can’t even readily understand when someone tells them the feature exists. What portion is that? Definitely non-zero. Probably varies amongst different communities. It might be _very high_ in a niche community of smaller numbers of highly-engaged users and much lower in a drive-by-commenting style place with less engagement and larger audience.

The status quo reduces use even for a communities of all A+ students.

Some communities will have reasons to really prefer on-topic focus and no problem with lots of small topics. Others may never care. Don’t make it hard for communities that want the feature. It’s a great feature.

At just a tiny push, if there were a built-in way to post something like the mockup above, it would at _least_ make it easier for moderators to _choose_ to easily show users the feature.

I don’t like the suggestion that handling this should all be about hands-on moderation rather than teaching and empowering users. Keep in mind that there are instances of pretty hands-off (and even relatively ignorant) moderators where engaged users still want to help each other have the best experience.

---

_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/request-unhide-the-reply-as-linked-topic-function/154943)._