Lack of interest Splitting threads causes people to lose subscription to the split thread

[Connor Holio]

I noticed that if a discussion drifts off-topic, and I split a thread, the new thread has no subscribers. It dies off quickly because people do not receive thread reply notifications.

After that the original thread does not get any attention either because nobody posts any replies in it.

This should be fixed within XenForo.

 

[Connor Holio]

I found a so-so workaround. Instead of splitting off the new posts as a new thread, I tried splitting off the old posts as a new thread. This keeps the latter, active part of the thread going. But this has drawbacks:

1) People become unsubscribed from the earlier, original part of the thread.

2) The thread with the new split off posts does not show up in my Weekly Digest email (I think it does not) because it is not a new thread.

 

[Chris D]

I’m not certain we currently consider this to be a bug. I can see your point but then I feel like one purpose for splitting a thread is to remove perhaps a secondary conversation which not all participants of the primary conversation may be interested in, and therefore it may be slightly intrusive or unexpected at least to subscribe those participants to it.

When you move posts to a new thread you can opt to send an alert to those users. This informs them at least that the new thread exists then they can continue to participate or manually watch the thread if they wish to.

So for now I’m going to consider this a longer term suggestion for future implementation.

 

[Connor Holio]

one purpose for splitting a thread is to remove perhaps a secondary conversation which not all participants of the primary conversation may be interested in, and therefore it may be slightly intrusive or unexpected at least to subscribe those participants to it.

The primary participants should not be subscribed to the second split-off thread. But those, whose posts got moved to the second thread, should. Else, with no new post notifications, the new thread will die quickly.

When you move posts to a new thread you can opt to send an alert to those users.

Is this feature available in XF, or are you suggesting I should send private messages to everybody?

 

[Chris D]

When moving the posts you can opt to send an alert:

 

[Connor Holio]

That's an alert for the thread starter only. More often than not he is not the one who started posting off-topic, or replied off-topic, so he rarely needs such a notification. This option should apply to the authors of all split-off posts instead.

 

[Chris D]

No, it isn't. It's an alert to whoever the author is of each post you're moving.

 

[Connor Holio]

Got it! The wording has confused me. Thank you for clarifying. I couldn't have imagined it would send alerts to ALL the moved authors.

 

[RobinHood]

This can still be confusing for users currently subbed to a thread and have been following all the split posts up until the point they get split, even if none or their posts have been split off.

To me it would make sense to send an alert to all subbed users of the initial thread that x posts have been split off and a new thread has been created at y location. They can then follow this alert link and choose to ignore it, reply to that new thread or manually sub if they just want to follow it.

Just because none of their posts were chosen by a mod not to be included in the split, doesn’t mean they’re not interested in the topic. They’re already invested in that thread to some extent.

I also think there should be some kind of permanent notice at the top of split threads notifying readers that the thread in question was initially split out from another thread and link back to it. A small low profile notice like the locked thread banner.

This gives the new thread historical context and will link readers to the original source if they want to read further into what spurred the new discussion.

I think I made a suggestion and mock-up for this a couple of years ago, but I’m on mobile right now so don’t really want to search.

 

[Ozzy47]

I think I made a suggestion and mock-up for this a couple of years ago, but I’m on mobile right now so don’t really want to search.

Perhaps this, https://xenforo.com/community/threa...ting-off-a-post-to-create-a-new-thread.65283/

 

[RobinHood]

Ha! Yes! Wow you’re fast Ozzy!

Not sure why my old image isn’t working anymore though.

Edit, it seems to work in the thread linked another thread back. The mock-up seems a bit too subtle now. Could perhaps be a bit clearer

 

[Steffen]

Sending an alert only notifies the authors of moved posts, not all users who watch a thread. Copying the watch could be undesirable in some cases but I think that in the majority of cases it would be useful. Furthermore, unsubscribing is simple, whereas rediscovering a split (and thereby lost) thread probably only happens by coincidence/luck.

 

[Connor Holio]

I now have a method that sort of works. Once the thread starts going haywire, I

1) Make a new thread Y with a title that I want. I say something like that this thread has been split from the original thread X.
2) Announce in the old thread X that I have move the posts about new topic Y to a new thread Y. Sometimes I ask them to subscribe to the new thread Y, and even provide them with a subscribe link to click.
3) Quickly move these posts about Y to thread Y.

It works, it is a lot of work, but it does not kill the new discussion, or the old thread, as it reliably did before.