Splitting a topic and moving replies to a new topic

Most of my users complains that splitting a new topic is not very obvious. I mean the newly created topic have only a small side reference to the original posts, just like there is a link into the topic.

My workaround until now is to edit each splitted topic and add at the very beginning of the topic „continuing discussion from here” (and add a link), but I think this could be automated somehow.

So the feature request is: can this be added automatically?

Thanks!

Do you mean when a moderator moves posts to a new topic or when a user replies as a new topic?

Edit: I’m assuming it’s the former.

Maybe similar to the “posts have been moved” yellow post the “new” topic’s OP could be yellow as well?

It has never been unclear to me, but I suppose there might be some that miss the fact.

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No, not really. So, let me give you a real-life example.

Here is the end of the initial topic, which was forked into a new one:

Clearly enough, it’s obvious that things were moved around. But, if you go directly to the forked topic, you will see this:

Other than the red highlight, there is nothing that links to the original article. More than that, even the red highlight doesn’t explicitly says something about the relation with the initial topic.

(green highlight is the moderator note)


I’m not sure how reply as a new topic is highlighted, but i assume is the same?

No, reply as new topic is marked more clearly.

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This seems to never have gotten resolved.

Moving to a new topic is much less clearly marked than reply-as-new-topic!

They are the same thing in effect! A moderator moving something to a new topic should be identical in that it is basically a moderator saying “this should have been reply-as-new-topic”. It should have the same “continuing the discussion from [old topic]” beginning to the post!

Without that, it’s quite awkward!

ADDENDUM: I see how this happens because reply-as-new-topic involves posting new text, and it’s trivial to insert the canned line about continuing from the other topic (which someone could delete or edit before posting). Whereas with moving, there’s no edit/post dialog inherently. But I still think a “moved from” canned line should be added to the top when moving. That’s the better default.

Perhaps the move interface could have a check-box for whether to include the move notice or not?

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