What's the best way to branch off a discussion from a topic?

Product Support

AI-generated summary

In a support discussion titled What’s the best way to branch off a discussion from a topic?, johndbritton asks how to handle tangential conversations in a topic where new members introduce themselves. They’re concerned that replying directly within the thread may create notification noise for others and wonder if there’s a way to reply as a new topic — noting they thought such a feature may have been removed. rriemann clarifies that the feature still exists but is less visible: users should click the share a link to post button (next to the reply button), then select the option to create a new linked topic. This is recommended as the best approach for branching conversations. rriemann also notes that users can quote text from the original topic when starting the new one. Two screenshots illustrate the steps: Step 1 shows clicking the share button, and Step 2 shows selecting the option to create a new linked topic. This preserves context while keeping the main thread clean and reducing notification clutter for non-participants.

1

We have one topic where new community members are introducing themselves and I’m seeing lots of cases where I’d like to get into a more in-depth conversation on a tangent to the thread topic.

If I reply to a comment, it shows up nicely under a 1 Reply link, but also at the end of the topic. I’m unsure how notifications work in this case, but it seems like things might get too chatty if I go through and respond to each new member in the same thread.

Is there a recommended way to reply to an existing discussion about a new topic? I thought there might be a feature to reply as a new topic, and I searched around for it. Seems like this feature may have existed previously but has since been removed.

So I have two questions:

  1. If I go through and reply and have lots of tangential conversations with the users introducing themsleves in one topic, will it create a ton of irrelevant notification noise for everyone on the thread?

  2. Is there a way to reply to a post as a new topic? If not, as a feature how do you approach this case?

2

The feature is still existing but not so easy to find anymore. You have to click on the share a link to post button next to the reply button (either of the post or of the topic at the bottom of the page). In the popup, you have an option to create a new linked topic. Imho, that’s the preferable solution in your case. Note, that you can also quote from within the other topic (try out to select text for quoting).

Step 1

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Step 2

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