XF 2.3 Hierarchical Posts conversion

[Seeker-Smith]

Hi
As some of you might know. I have a new thread type "Hierarchical Posts", "Hierarchical posts forums will contain a thread list with nested replies. This forum type will not have a separate page for threads."

Now the question has come up about converting existing forums to Hierarchical then back to standard. The problem is the two systems are not interchangeable without compromises and perhaps data loss.

My question to the developer was: "How difficult would it be to add import / export or forum conversion to Hierarchical?"

The answer was a new question.

Depends on the implementation. Should a hierarchy be generated based on quotes when converting from a regular forum? Or will all posts in a thread be replies to the first post? Should quotes be added to posts when converting a hierarchy posts forum?

I think you can see for this image how this becomes a problem when doing a conversion.



So here is the question to the Xenforo brain trust, I'm looking for opinions or consensus.

 

[frm]

I really don't see a good way of doing it, because let's say a reply to a reply quotes the reply in the new post, the entire order of the conversation will be off. You could attempt to reorganize with post position in a thread, but it would make it very hard for a reader to follow the thread, with or without reorganizing post positions.

 

[frm]

Alternatively, 2nd level replies could become separate threads.

1st level is replying to the original content so that'd be 1 thread.

2nd level is replying to a 1st level so it could quote that in a new thread, but then you're missing the title.