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Merged Posts SUCKS!!

Ambrosia7177

Ambrosia7177

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Feb 6, 2016
2,215
433
I wish you all would DISABLE the "merged posts" feature.

Why?

Being someone who creates threads that often inspire intense conversations, I often come to my trheads to find several new posts.

If someone takes the time to respond to my comments/questions, then I owe them a well thought out response!

Lets say that Fishrrman and Mr_Brightside_@ respond to my latest post.

So I go in and start responding to Fishrrman's post first. And then I submit my response.

Next I respond to Mr_Brightsid_@'s post and I do that in under 15 minutes.

Now my two responses get merged into one post.

The problem is that everyone read my response to Fishrrman in my latest post, BUT they end up missing what I sid to My_Brightside_@ because a second post does not appear, but gets appended on to my original post?!]

So, I spent maybe 10 minutes typing a well thought out response to MrBrighside_@, but he and others miss it because of this stupid merging feature?!

Now compound that with the fact that I often wake up in the morning and have 2, 3, 4, 5 responses to my last post the day before...

If my response to each previous poster are shorter/quicker, then the forum might miss my response to several people, UNLESS they remember to go back and RE-READ previous posts.

Why make people have to keep checking for updates all because of the stupid
merge posts" feature???

Furthermore...

What is that feature supposed to accomplish??

It doesn't save space in the thread.

It makes it harder to find independent thoughts which is why God create the concept of a separate "post".

It forces everyone to have to re-read trheads and posts over and over and over again to make sure they have the latest version of the conversation.

Finally, it adds no additional value!!


Why make more work for the members of MacRumors when there is no added benefit?? :-/


Oh, and one more thing...

This current feature forces me to have to wait 15 minutes between posts so I can make sure my response to different people shows up as a separate post for the community's benefit.

Seriously?



:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
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I'm sure staff will reply here too but there are a couple of compelling reasons for this feature. First is that it prevents spam, or bumping of your last reply. What would prevent you from making the last 5 or 10 replies and pushing the thread to the top of the list each time?

The other is that when you reply to more than one person and your posts are merged, every person you quote will still get a notification so nothing will go missed. :)
 
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ericgtr12 said:
I'm sure staff will reply here too but there are a couple of compelling reasons for this feature. First is that it prevents spam, or bumping of your last reply. What would prevent you from making the last 5 or 10 replies and pushing the thread to the top of the list each time?
Click to expand...

If threads are sorted by activity, and people are responding continuously for the next 30 minutes, then they thread SHOULD get sorted to the top for the next 30 minutes. And if all of that activity comes from one person, it is still valid activity.


ericgtr12 said:
The other is that when you reply to more than one person and your posts are merged, every person you quote will still get a notification so nothing will go missed. :)
Click to expand...

Are you sure?

I'm not sure that features aways works.

And even if it does work, what about the rest of us?

I have had NUMEROUS people miss my responses because they don't get a notification - be it respondee or other viewer - when posts get merged.


Merged posts also make it harder for people to follow threads when you have long-winded posters like me responding to several people with quotes and likes and references and so on.

The "post" metaphor exists because it logically breaks up content (and communications).

And I think any fears of getting rid of "merged posts" because someone might abuse it are far outweighed by the *benefits* to the macRumors community!

Besides, if you are a spammer, you will be dealt with either way?! ;-)


COUGH COUGH: I'll be back in 15 minutes so you all see my next response to the next poster... ;-)


The waiting is the hardest part... :cool:
 
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arn said:
yeah. I’ve been luke warm on it recently. It has benefits but some awkwardness too. Will look into it again.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the consideration.

I think the benefits would far outweigh any minor negatives, and it is the standard for nearly every forum that I have been on.

And, personally, it would save me an enormous amount of time by allowing me to reply to multiple people in minutes versus hours...
 
Texas_Toast said:
he problem is that everyone read my response to Fishrrman in my latest post, BUT they end up missing what I sid to My_Brightside_@ because a second post does not appear, but gets appended on to my original post?!]
Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't understand the problem at all. Why can't people see what you said to My_Brightside_? Because they only read the first few sentences of a post?

I do like the feature, it's a way to cut down on noise in a thread. It only merges double posts, so it shouldn't interrupt the flow of conversation.
 
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Wowfunhappy said:
Sorry, I don't understand the problem at all. Why can't people see what you said to My_Brightside_? Because they only read the first few sentences of a post?
Click to expand...

Because in the hypothetical scenario above, I spent 20 minutes crafting a passionate response to @Fishrrman, and click "Post".

@Wowfunhappy come along, and starts reading my response to Fishrrman, but

Then I decide to rely to @Mr_Brightside_@'s post, and wanting to offer an equally passionate response, I spend ANOTHER 10 minutes crafting a response to Mr_Brightside_@


What's the problem?

The problem is that it only took you 5 minutes to read what I said to Fishrrman, and since my response to Mr_Brightside_@ took me 10 minutes to craft, it got appended to that message because it was under the 15 minute window and "merge posts" kicked in, and as a result you never see my response to Mr_Brightsie_@ (unless you are in the habit of re-reading old posts)?!

THAT is the problem! (Figuring out this process-flow stuff is what I do for a living!)

It is a *subtle* thing, but it means a lot of people miss what the poster is saying, and that is bad for everyone.

As a result, when I have several posts in a thread to respond to, I will purposely wait 15 minutes per response to ensure I get a unique post for each reply.

That is such an enough waste of my time, yet I endure it for the good of effective communication...

Follow me?


Wowfunhappy said:
I do like the feature, it's a way to cut down on noise in a thread. It only merges double posts, so it shouldn't interrupt the flow of conversation.
Click to expand...

But it hides new posts to anyone not quoted which is the majority of readers...


I suffer from this "design flow" in other people's threads as well - especially active ones like PRSI.

What MacRumors has with "merge posts" is the equivalent to working on a document at work with several authors/readers and NOT turning on "Track Changes" in the MS Word document?!

It is unsustainable...
 
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I'm not a huge fan, it sort of "de-threads" the communication flow, but wouldn't spend too many cycles campaigning against it.


Wowfunhappy said:
Sorry, I don't understand the problem at all. Why can't people see what you said to My_Brightside_? Because they only read the first few sentences of a post?
Click to expand...


Because it comes later, i.e.:

Post 1
<users_read>
Post A in response to Post 1
<users_read>
Post 2
<users_read>

... and this where it kind of breaks (and note, I'm aware that after X time [I believe it's 15 minutes], it does not merge)

So now the same user responds to Post 2, however, it's merged into Post A, I already read that post when it only contained a response to Post 1, I'm "past" it in the discussion timeline. It updates existing posts further up in the thread, and in a hot topic (with quick posts/replies), it might merge several posts replies __back__ in that original post. Sure, the users who are quoted get notified, but the site admins have said several times they greatly value every post, out side of just who it's directed at (even to the point, they've said this about blocked users and their unseen replies ...)
 
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As a reader, I find it more organized when a user who wants to respond to more than one user just uses the multi-quote feature. @Texas_Toast is there a reason you don't like multi-quote? That way, posts aren't auto-merged, they're well-organized for readers, and each individual user you include via multi-quote should get a notification.
 
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annk said:
As a reader, I find it more organized when a user who wants to respond to more than one user just uses the multi-quote feature. @Texas_Toast is there a reason you don't like multi-quote? That way, posts aren't auto-merged, they're well-organized for readers, and each individual user you include via multi-quote should get a notification.
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Would merged posts pretty much result in the same thing, assuming the original posts are quoted?
 
I try to use multi-quote as much as possible. For me, I do miss replies in long threads and go back for a second or third sweep which is then auto-merged. I'm 50-50 on this as there are benefits--less posts, and drawbacks--more difficult to reply with many merged posts and reacting to one post within a group of auto-merged quotes is not possible. (As has been pointed out)
 
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Me, personally I'd like the option at post time, if possible. If not, and if my vote meant anything other than a few random bytes of data, I'd vote to ****can auto merging.
 
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This forum, like most others, defaults to bumping the last replied thread to the top of the forum. If one were persistent enough, they could just keep bumping their own thread, this use to be a major problem with forums which is why this is a common feature now. Personally, I like it when one has the last word and they can't make any more of it unless they're fed more again.
 
annk said:
As a reader, I find it more organized when a user who wants to respond to more than one user just uses the multi-quote feature. @Texas_Toast is there a reason you don't like multi-quote? That way, posts aren't auto-merged, they're well-organized for readers, and each individual user you include via multi-quote should get a notification.
Click to expand...

How does multi-quote work?

Regardless, I cannot see why logically it makes sense to combine posts...

As done in programming, a post should be "atomic" and "immutable"!!
 
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Texas_Toast said:
How does multi-quote work?

Regardless, I cannot see why logically it makes sense to combine posts...

As done in programming, a post should be "atomic" and "immutable"!!
Click to expand...
Next to the Reply button there's another button called "Quote. You can click on this for every single post above yours that you like, then when you go to reply (on the bottom) you'll see the "Insert quotes" button on the left. This will allow you to insert them, it's actually a pretty nice feature of this board.
 
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ericgtr12 said:
Next to the Reply button there's another button called "Quote. You can click on this for every single post above yours that you like, then when you go to reply (on the bottom) you'll see the "Insert quotes" button on the left. This will allow you to insert them, it's actually a pretty nice feature of this board.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a great feature, you can also select text and hover:

1595375358293.png



... and quote specific text (vs. an entire post), however, that doesn't circumvent the issue with a quote being merged back into a previous post. :)
 
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D.T. said:
Yeah, it's a great feature, you can also select text and hover:

View attachment 936141


... and quote specific text (vs. an entire post), however, that doesn't circumvent the issue with a quote being merged back into a previous post. :)
Click to expand...

Another vote for the "multi-quote" function; I find it excellent.

And, thank you, @D.T., this is very interesting: One of the reasons I keep visiting some sections of the forum is to learn new stuff, & I hadn't known of the 'select text & hover' possibility until I read your post.
 
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