I strongly dislike merged topics

[Gryphonknight]

Well wishes

Good luck mods ( not being sarcastic)

Being a moderator on other forums, their is no smartphone friendly way to merge topics.

Pros

Messy merged topic are better than a wild tangle of stubs scattered throughout the forum clogging up the search. Search within a topic is also more friendly than forum wide search. The main reason being it excludes the Suggestion sub forum ( though advanced search lets you avoid sub forums also ). And chronology is easier to decipher when there are several changes ( such as with titans).

Forums are messy things because humans are messy.

“Moderators are paid and praise and taxed in grief. The pay is too low and the taxes too high!”- Gryphonknight

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@Gryphonknight

Forums are just messy things because humans are messy. Forums that are neat, tend to be dead forums.

“Moderators are paid and praise and taxed in grief. The pay is too low and the taxes too high!”- Gryphonknight

@Rook

I have considered making some kind of Common Complaints thread, however I personally don’t think it will redirect any complaints, or reduce complaining clutter around the Forum.

The only thing that will reduce clutter is a separate category “Feedback”. Buuuut, the problem is most topics eventually get derailed into complaining ( Godwin’s law ) so the reduction is more like -10% than -100%. In practice, this is just not worth the effort moderating it.

If you want to reduce clutter, the best ( that I have actually seen in use on a public forum ) is one or two curated sections of posts or links.

Example:

A “Beginners” category that contains locked, copies of useful posts for beginners. Since all posts are copies, people can still complain in the original posts but not the curated copies. Since all copies are locked, there are no replies six months later that derail into complaints. Since only moderators or staff can post copies, all posts are on topic. Since all posts are edit locked copies, the original poster cannot vandalize the post at a latter date out of frustration.

But MMOs are always changing and old posts become obsolete, especially when new features are added.

I have always wanted to try a “Hot Links” curated category, with just links to interesting topics or replies. Or maybe a “Link of the Day” curated category. Just some way to boost a topic or reply. By having a separate topic for each link, you could see what is interesting people.

However, I have never moderated a forum that was busy enough to warrant anything …