Suggestion re Duplicate THREADS

[Deimos]

There seems to be an increasing number of duplicate threads. Initially I thought these were due to a bug in the forum software but it seems that it is the posters deciding their subject is so important it should be posted to several threads. I would expect that were people to select a sensible forum area to start with, they would get responses from people who have appropriate knowledge or opinions. Posting in two forum areas just starts two discussion threads and minimises the benefit that can happen from discussion between posters.

Fine, if posted in one forum area and after a few weeks nothing, then maybe try another but there seem to be quite a few instances I have noticed recently where two identical threads have been started in different areas on the forum within minutes of each other.

In fact, maybe people are being pretty lax about selecting an appropriate thread for a post. I’m not going to mention any examples as I am not being critical of specific threads not individuals. However, with a c**p search facility, use of the forum is even harder is people select inappropriate threads (or duplicate threads).

Ian

[Alan Zoff]

You will never completely cure problem of incompetent posters (I have "my moments" and do not therefore exclude myself from that description). 

I fully agree, though, that provision of a Search facility that worked would help the situation.

[andyh4]

Ian,

one problem may be that of getting an automated message back from the server when you post.  Time out for example.  You don't know whether your post has gone through or not so the temptation is to use back and submit again.  (been there and done that with replies)  This explains the multiple entries in the same folder, but not those posted in different folders.

 

 

[Will]

I totally agree with what Ian says - please try and post in one place only. Multiple postings may increase your chances of important topics being seen; but they can make replies etc very difficult to follow and find, which has the opposite effect - people just won't bother to read or respond to something that 'spams' the forum.

Andyh4 is also perfectly right, these can be due to timeouts or other errors, which are a known problem, and are being sorted out. In 99% of cases the message gets through, though they can have the annoying consequence of getting stuch at the bottom of a thread so any replies appear above. Users can normally remove their own duplicated replies (edit - delete)  but if the first post of a topic is duplicated, so we have two topics, one of these can only be removed by admin, and that isn't alway particularly easy, so please be particularly careful when starting a topic, and please make absolutely sure it hasn't appeared before you re-post.

[Deimos]

[quote]Ian, one problem may be that of getting an automated message back from the server when you post. Time out for example. You don't know whether your post has gone through or not so the temptation is ...[/quote]

Sorry, not two identical threads in the same forum area (which I agree is due to not being sure what has happened after a e.g. timeout error), but where a thread is posted to one forum area (e.g. “Windsurfing and modern dancing” and then an identical post, same content, same title, etc. to e.g. “Demolition and deep sea fishing”

(I’ve chosen daft forum areas as I am not “pointing any fingers”, so nobody needs to get defensive.

Ian