How to prevent automerge

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Hi, how do I prevent my replies to posts from automerging if I'm replying to multiple different comments. I hate this feature. Two completely different replies to two totally different comments - why would they be merged? If someone wants to "like" one of the replies, but doesn't "like" the other, then what do they do? Is there a way to turn off automerging?

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there a way to turn off automerging?

Sorry, no there is no way for you to turn that off. It is intentional to keep the thread length in check.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Sorry, no there is no way for you to turn that off. It is intentional to keep the thread length in check.

Horrible, horrible feature. Quite often I want to give a serious answer to one post, and a funny answer to another post. These answers don't belong together.

And besides... why do you want to keep the thread length in check??? What does that achieve? Are you running out of database/disk space?

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

You can wait until someone else has posted or wait a predefined amount of time (I think it's like 1 hour or something) and your posts will appear individually.

 

[Weaselboy]

And besides... why do you want to keep the thread length in check??? What does that achieve?

It is not about storage space, it is about the length of the thread on your screen.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

It is not about storage space, it is about the length of the thread on your screen.

Huh? I can scroll forever, this is a computer screen, not a piece of paper. And how does automerging make any difference to length anyway? All it does is put two unrelated comments together simply because they have the same author. Quite often I see someone else's automerged comments, and I agree with one and want to "like" it, but don't agree with the other, or have an entirely different emotion to it, so instead of a "like" and a "ha ha", or a "like" for one, and nothing for the other, I just give them both nothing. Automerging ruins the whole point of having "likes", and ranked comments by "likes".

 

[Porco]

Horrible, horrible feature. Quite often I want to give a serious answer to one post, and a funny answer to another post. These answers don't belong together.

And besides... why do you want to keep the thread length in check??? What does that achieve? Are you running out of database/disk space?

I entirely agree, having both automerging and a complex system of likes totally clashes IMHO. I suppose people can like the post then reply and quote the specific part of the post they were liking, but that would seem to defeat the supposed object of automerging to ‘save scrolling’ (because scrolling past two posts by the same user is harder than scrolling by two posts by different users would be or something?! What?! It makes no sense to me.) ?!?.

It is what it is though, I guess try to keep each post focused on a single point or subject if it bothers you, and/or wait until others respond before making a different point.

For what it’s worth, I liked your post quoted above for both comments contained within it. If they had been separate posts, I might have liked both... or I might have liked one and not the other. I guess you'll never know now!

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

You can wait until someone else has posted or wait a predefined amount of time (I think it's like 1 hour or something) and your posts will appear individually.

Really??? And what does that achieve? Madness!

 

[Stoke]

Same problem here. Annoying old feature. I can see where it comes from but it gets more in the way than it actually helps.

We can collect quotes and merge them already if we want to reply to multiple people in a partial thread.

Please don't force-merge things we don't think belong together.

 

[annk]

Same problem here. Annoying old feature. I can see where it comes from but it gets more in the way than it actually helps.

We can collect quotes and merge them already if we want to reply to multiple people in a partial thread.

Please don't force-merge things we don't think belong together.

As with just about any function, there are pros and cons and a reason for why it is the way it is now.

The background is that before this feature, years ago, it unfortunately wasn't unusual for users to post several comments or replies in a row, and we got a good deal of feedback saying that this was irritating because it cluttered up the thread. To keep it from happening we included a rule that asked users not to create consecutive posts, and had to merge such posts manually. I remember seeing threads like that and cleaning up the consecutive posts.

The multiquote feature is the solution here. It's true that this means it can be unclear what users like if they like a post with responses to more than one quoted post, but unfortunately that's the payoff.