# Splitting topic into a new message for moderation
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [March 17, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825 "2019-03-17T04:07:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zeemah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Zeemah)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/1 "2019-03-17T04:07:37Z")
I recently came across a situation where I needed to talk to a user about further clarification about what his topic was about, to ensure that they didn’t disobey the rules. I initially started the conversation on the original topic, I then realised I needed to get into more detail and information and I didn’t want to derail the topic any further. My intention was to split the topic into a **new message** , I realised that this wasn’t available ☹ would it be possible for this to be implemented? As the aforementioned situation, I just had to split it into a new topic then make the topic a private message which wasn’t really ideal.
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2019, 4:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/2 "2019-03-17T04:35:44Z")
Moving posts to a new message is supported and has worked for some time:
Are you an admin, or moderator? Which version are you using?
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### Author:  [@Zeemah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Zeemah)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2019, 4:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/3 "2019-03-17T04:40:25Z")
This Discourse site I’m a moderator for is running [v2.3.0.beta5 +9](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/compare/f3c76ad482d3a3fd7ea0f3fdf5c8cd17b73495fe...tests-passed).
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### Author:  [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2019, 5:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/4 "2019-03-17T05:14:39Z")
Are the posts in a restricted category? I’ve just checked and moderators can’t split posts into a PM.
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### Author:  [@Zeemah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Zeemah)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2019, 5:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/5 "2019-03-17T05:17:23Z")
Yea, they’re not in a restricted category. Just seems to be moderator limitation then. 🙂
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2019, 9:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/6 "2019-03-17T09:32:28Z")
The difficulty is that you wouldn’t have access, as moderators don’t have access to PMs unless they are a part of the PM or the PM is currently flagged.
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### Author:  [@Zeemah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Zeemah)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2019, 11:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/7 "2019-03-17T11:44:05Z")
But for splitting them into a _new_ message should be capable, right? Not an _already existing_ message.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2019, 1:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/8 "2019-03-18T01:58:36Z")
Kind of, but that doesn’t mean they have access to the PM unless they are also moving a post they created there.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2022, 2:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/splitting-topic-into-a-new-message-for-moderation/111825/9 "2022-05-08T02:35:58Z")