Well, I was taking a stroll through the park, thinking about life, and all it's complexity. Out of nowhere, a dog jumped out from behind a bush and knocked me over. As I was getting up, thinking about the complexity of life, and the odds of that dog jumping out at that exact time made me realize something...we should have automatic double-post merging!
So I ran home as fast as I can; eager to share the news of my golden ticket my suggestion with the world!

What if there was a feature that would merge a double-post automatically (when it is posted), into the previous (initial) post, with some sort of divider (<hr> or something) in between? And perhaps a little message saying it was automatically merged at [insert time here].

There could also be an option to disable it... or when a staff make a post to have a checkbox on whether to disable it for that particular post (like when you need well-structured stickies or something).
Or there could be an option to make it not merge of there is a certain time difference between the two posts or something

Pros:
-cut down on spam. Many spammers just make a thread and repeatedly post in it. This would merge it all in one post, and also does not increase their postcount with every single post.
-could be an alternative to multi-quote

Cons:
-haven't thought of one yet

So what do you think?

I like the idea!

Of course, the delay has to be a sensible time. (1 minute or so?)

But this will most definitely cut down on multi posting topics... So an awesome suggestion

That's certainly something I've never seen anywhere else before. It would need some careful thought though (same as the multi-quote) to ensure that the user interface is still easy to use Unless the merge is always forced when the posts are less than 5 minutes apart and the topic isn't a sticky?

I think that it shouldn't affect staff.

But, I think that the time should be changeable by an admin.

Some forums have "Game" boards, with "What Are You Listening To" threads, etc. so they may want a shorter limit, while other forums might want a 12 hour limit.

Also, it should be different for each board. [Like how some forums have it so General threads needs 24 hours between bumps, while requests only need 4.]

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That's an interesting story; I wonder where you got the inspiration.

Ok, if you're going with less than 5, there has to be an option to make it so that you can turn it off in a thread (only by staff)

Posted By Marc on 2nd Mar 08 at 11:36pm

 

Some forums have "Game" boards, with "What Are You Listening To" threads, etc. so they may want a shorter limit, while other forums might want a 12 hour limit.

I think as some topics recieve a large number of posts per minute, it should only apply if you were already the last poster. As soon as someone different has posted in that topic, your next post would be posted as a standard post.

Going along the same lines, I'd love to be able to merge topics, as well...

~Artemis

Posted By Paddy on 2nd Mar 08 at 11:56pm

 

Going along the same lines, I'd love to be able to merge topics, as well...

~Artemis

Merge topics is feature avaliable through "Multi-topic Moderation"

*hides in a hole*

I totally knew that. And was, uh, checking to make sure you did.

Yeah.

~Artemis

Posted By Paddy on 3rd Mar 08 at 12:52am

 

*hides in a hole*

I totally knew that. And was, uh, checking to make sure you did.

Yeah.

~Artemis

We'll believe you, thousands wouldn't

As for the suggestion, as long as it's implemented properly it's a winner