When Can We Fork a Topic
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So...how about some Miscellaneous Tech News instead of arguing? Can this be forked out?
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@Kelly said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
So...how about some Miscellaneous Tech News instead of arguing? Can this be forked out?
There's no need to ask for that, we always try to fork, we just can't easily do so during a live discussion. Same reason every time, we have to lock the thread and for quite a while or it causing forking problems because people either get the equivalent of a ban (not good) or the posts go to multiple places and are disjointed because we can only fork once, not move over individual posts after they go to the wrong thread.
It seems like we don't do this, because someone asks for a fork on every discussion like this. But someone always asks before the thread is effectively forkable.
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I forked this to show how this can work when it's not a quick discussion. Because talking about the forking process isn't getting a regular back and forth, we can just pull it out live. That's easy. And I try to do that when possible.
But for the rapid back and forth where there is a decent chance that someone is currently still typing or is likely to be during the forking process, it causes the fork to break.
What we need, and I hope that they add this soon, is an ability to selectively cut posts in a thread and move them to another one that already exists. That poses some continuity dangers, but if handled well will solve the forking problem we have now.
Right now, the best answer is to do a long lock on a thread, but that makes it seem like the discussion or thread is being locked for different reasons and leads to confusion.
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So you lose 1-5 posts. Is that worth destroying an existing topic? I understand waiting a while, but the Misc Tech News thread is basically shut down for what it is intended for. If I post a news item it will be swamped by the current back and forth.
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And there are many of us who follow the thread that don't care about what the three of you are wrangling over.
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
So you lose 1-5 posts. Is that worth destroying an existing topic? I understand waiting a while, but the Misc Tech News thread is basically shut down for what it is intended for. If I post a news item it will be swamped by the current back and forth.
Does it destroy the existing topic? It doesn't stop new posts that are on topic. Yes, a new post will be temporarily lost in a thread of conversation, I agree. That's not ideal, for sure.
But once the discussion slows and is forked, it'll be prominent again.
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I don't necessarily think this was your intention, but it does look odd to remove from the more popular thread input that you don't appear to agree with.
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
I don't necessarily think this was your intention, but it does look odd to remove from the more popular thread input that you don't appear to agree with.
That's why I mentioned that I forked this as an example to show that forking under some conditions works immediately, but under the ones that people want, rarely does without causing the aforementioned problems.
However, it's also important to note that discussing moderation or forking is far less related to the topic than discussing an actual news item is.
But my REAL point, was that I agreed. I know that the fork needs to happen. I was pointing out, because this happens constantly, that there tends to be talk of forking before forking is viable and isn't needed because no one is intending not to fork, only to wait till the discussion allows for it.
Is it worth discussing the value of faster forking with locking, yes, absolutely. And let's do so.
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
And there are many of us who follow the thread that don't care about what the three of you are wrangling over.
To do a fork while a discussion is live, we have to lock it, for a bit. Maybe five or ten minutes. Otherwise, in flight posts go all over the place. During that time, it doesn't just halt the "unwanted" discussion, but it stops news posting entirely (in the case of a news thread, like this example.)
Not that anyone is posting or reading news very likely in those few minutes. But that's the underlying problem, it locks up the discussion during the forking, and locks up the original discussion (but not the fork) for a little bit after that until people have converged on the new thread.
Not saying that that is a good reason to chose to do it that way. Just so you understand how it works and what the concern is.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
And there are many of us who follow the thread that don't care about what the three of you are wrangling over.
To do a fork while a discussion is live, we have to lock it, for a bit. Maybe five or ten minutes. Otherwise, in flight posts go all over the place. During that time, it doesn't just halt the "unwanted" discussion, but it stops news posting entirely (in the case of a news thread, like this example.)
Not that anyone is posting or reading news very likely in those few minutes. But that's the underlying problem, it locks up the discussion during the forking, and locks up the original discussion (but not the fork) for a little bit after that until people have converged on the new thread.
Not saying that that is a good reason to chose to do it that way. Just so you understand how it works and what the concern is.
Thanks for explaining. I still don't agree, but I appreciate you clarifying the why's behind your decision.
Side note: You cannot zero out a vote. Sorry about the upvote spam (if it happened). I was trying to change my -1 to a zero and it will only go to 1 or -1.
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
Thanks for explaining. I still don't agree, but I appreciate you clarifying the why's behind your decision.
I mentioned the lock, and two posts so far after it
But a soft mention before throwing the lock might help.
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
Side note: You cannot zero out a vote. Sorry about the upvote spam (if it happened). I was trying to change my -1 to a zero and it will only go to 1 or -1.
That's weird, it didn't use to work that way.
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@Kelly ugh...
notice that even with me posting twice not to post in the thread and giving people a few minutes, then locking the thread, then doing the fork and having a discussion live on the new thread, then leaving the old one locked for a bit...
A post still went to the wrong one after all that time
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@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly ugh...
notice that even with me posting twice not to post in the thread and giving people a few minutes, then locking the thread, then doing the fork and having a discussion live on the new thread, then leaving the old one locked for a bit...
A post still went to the wrong one after all that time
That is a people problem. Reach over and poke @Dashrender.
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly ugh...
notice that even with me posting twice not to post in the thread and giving people a few minutes, then locking the thread, then doing the fork and having a discussion live on the new thread, then leaving the old one locked for a bit...
A post still went to the wrong one after all that time
That is a people problem. Reach over and poke @Dashrender.
I did, lol. But having the "snip a post" ability would solve so much. @julian
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
And there are many of us who follow the thread that don't care about what the three of you are wrangling over.
To do a fork while a discussion is live, we have to lock it, for a bit. Maybe five or ten minutes. Otherwise, in flight posts go all over the place. During that time, it doesn't just halt the "unwanted" discussion, but it stops news posting entirely (in the case of a news thread, like this example.)
Not that anyone is posting or reading news very likely in those few minutes. But that's the underlying problem, it locks up the discussion during the forking, and locks up the original discussion (but not the fork) for a little bit after that until people have converged on the new thread.
Not saying that that is a good reason to chose to do it that way. Just so you understand how it works and what the concern is.
Thanks for explaining. I still don't agree, but I appreciate you clarifying the why's behind your decision.
Side note: You cannot zero out a vote. Sorry about the upvote spam (if it happened). I was trying to change my -1 to a zero and it will only go to 1 or -1.
Click the downvote button again and it will zero it out.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
So you lose 1-5 posts. Is that worth destroying an existing topic? I understand waiting a while, but the Misc Tech News thread is basically shut down for what it is intended for. If I post a news item it will be swamped by the current back and forth.
Does it destroy the existing topic? It doesn't stop new posts that are on topic. Yes, a new post will be temporarily lost in a thread of conversation, I agree. That's not ideal, for sure.
But once the discussion slows and is forked, it'll be prominent again.
I think his point was that during a discussion like that, anything not related to the ongoing discussion posted by someone else is effectively a ban to who's posting, and who's wanting to see the topic's actual content.
I think that is worse than ACTUALLY locking the topic while it's forked.
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@coliver said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
And there are many of us who follow the thread that don't care about what the three of you are wrangling over.
To do a fork while a discussion is live, we have to lock it, for a bit. Maybe five or ten minutes. Otherwise, in flight posts go all over the place. During that time, it doesn't just halt the "unwanted" discussion, but it stops news posting entirely (in the case of a news thread, like this example.)
Not that anyone is posting or reading news very likely in those few minutes. But that's the underlying problem, it locks up the discussion during the forking, and locks up the original discussion (but not the fork) for a little bit after that until people have converged on the new thread.
Not saying that that is a good reason to chose to do it that way. Just so you understand how it works and what the concern is.
Thanks for explaining. I still don't agree, but I appreciate you clarifying the why's behind your decision.
Side note: You cannot zero out a vote. Sorry about the upvote spam (if it happened). I was trying to change my -1 to a zero and it will only go to 1 or -1.
Click the downvote button again and it will zero it out.
Good to know.
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@coliver said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
And there are many of us who follow the thread that don't care about what the three of you are wrangling over.
To do a fork while a discussion is live, we have to lock it, for a bit. Maybe five or ten minutes. Otherwise, in flight posts go all over the place. During that time, it doesn't just halt the "unwanted" discussion, but it stops news posting entirely (in the case of a news thread, like this example.)
Not that anyone is posting or reading news very likely in those few minutes. But that's the underlying problem, it locks up the discussion during the forking, and locks up the original discussion (but not the fork) for a little bit after that until people have converged on the new thread.
Not saying that that is a good reason to chose to do it that way. Just so you understand how it works and what the concern is.
Thanks for explaining. I still don't agree, but I appreciate you clarifying the why's behind your decision.
Side note: You cannot zero out a vote. Sorry about the upvote spam (if it happened). I was trying to change my -1 to a zero and it will only go to 1 or -1.
Click the downvote button again and it will zero it out.
Thanks for clarifying that. It makes sense on a certain level.
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@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@coliver said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@scottalanmiller said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
@Kelly said in When Can We Fork a Topic:
And there are many of us who follow the thread that don't care about what the three of you are wrangling over.
To do a fork while a discussion is live, we have to lock it, for a bit. Maybe five or ten minutes. Otherwise, in flight posts go all over the place. During that time, it doesn't just halt the "unwanted" discussion, but it stops news posting entirely (in the case of a news thread, like this example.)
Not that anyone is posting or reading news very likely in those few minutes. But that's the underlying problem, it locks up the discussion during the forking, and locks up the original discussion (but not the fork) for a little bit after that until people have converged on the new thread.
Not saying that that is a good reason to chose to do it that way. Just so you understand how it works and what the concern is.
Thanks for explaining. I still don't agree, but I appreciate you clarifying the why's behind your decision.
Side note: You cannot zero out a vote. Sorry about the upvote spam (if it happened). I was trying to change my -1 to a zero and it will only go to 1 or -1.
Click the downvote button again and it will zero it out.
Thanks for clarifying that. It makes sense on a certain level.
Meant to save a click when you misclick, I think.
