Moving & merging topics

  • 3 March 2017
  • 9 replies
  • 173 views
Mathis
Hello inSpired Community,



Another day another topic. 😉



I’ve briefly discussed this with @Julian old and @alexisvos from inSided last week onsite, but would like to bring the discussion to the community. (loving the mentions feature btw.)



One thing that we’re facing quite frequently on the SoundCloud Help Community is a duplication of topics - different users asking the same questions by creating new topics rather then replying to an existing topic (which, in itself is certainly something that can be improved in the first place, but that’s a different story I guess).



What gives? The “Move” feature to the rescue.



Here’s the list of steps I currently have to take in order to move one topic in its entirety.

1. Identifying the newly created topic(s) for which I know we have a longer discussion already

2. Opening the case

3. Select one reply

4. Click on “select all”

5. Click on "move to existing topic"

6. Go to the google sheet we’ve created with a list of all topics for which we’re seeing frequent duplicates

7. Copy the URL from there

8. Head back to the topic, paste the URL

9. Click on “Check url”

10. Click on “Move to existing topic”

11-13. Repeat the same process for the original post on the topic, as this one is currently not included when clicking on “Select all”



Repeat with other duplicate topics.



Here are a few things that I think would immediately improve this process.

a) Include the original post when choosing “Select all”

b) Change the URL field to a search / dropdown menu. given our moderators usually know the title of our “merge to’s”, this would speed up the process

c) Given I never type a URL but always copy & paste, have the system check up on the URL automatically, without having to click on “Check url”



Phew, ok. Long story, I know. You still here? Great! You’ve almost made it.



Whenever facing issues like this, I’m like “well maybe I’m using the tool wrong”, or “maybe I shouldn’t have to use this feature in the first place - what can I change so this doesn’t happen so often?”



Please, share your experience with this, curious to hear your thoughts around this matter.



Have a great weekend everyone!



Cheers

Mathis

9 replies

Julian old
Hey!



Well... I just wrote a longer, nice reply to your topic. Unfortunately it was lost because I was active in my Communitys Control environment in the meantime, so when I hit "send" I just got the login prompt for the Insided Community... 👎



So... here we go again...



Good points you are making. A tip from my side: Everytime I want the url from a often used topic on the Forum, I simply start typing a keyword of the topic title into the url field of my browser - ideally it will then offer you the url of that topic. Maybe makes your work a bit easier, idk.



My concern here is a different one, but surely related:

I also often have to move several comments from a topic. Sometimes I create a new topic for these comments, and that is what I find super inconvenient:



1. No batch processing of comments: I have to do the very same steps one-by-one, which is dull and time-consuming. Would be a lot easier if I could batch process these comments.



2. "The new topic has left the building": Once I completed the process of moving a comment to a new topic, the comment disappears. Fair enough, but how do I now find the url for the rest of the comments that need to be moved? I have to open a new tab, locate the topic, grab the url and then go back... Trust me, with every time you have to do that, the question mark only gets bigger why there is no pop-up message with that newly created url... :)



So I am certain that improvements in these fields would translate into a much smoother moderation process and that most of us would benefit from it.



Hoping that this comment will not be lost... 😃 Have a great weekend y'all!



Regards,



Julian
A
Hello @Mathis,



From what I understand, you're having trouble merging two topics together? Is this better done at the topic level or at a higher lever, for example, in the overviews page?



@Julian old, it would be great if you can share the steps you took. Is it moving comments to an existing or new topic or do you want to process more actions on multiple comments?



I noted down these issues as feature requests and I will reach out when we will do some investigation in this area.



1. Merging multiple topics (including first post)

2. Make the process of selecting an existing topic easier.

3. Losing your comment after a session time-out. I just suffered from this too.



Best wishes,



Gino
Mathis
Hi @gino.toro



Thanks for your response. Hmm, the Overview page will sometimes make sense for sure - especially if there's been a downtime that brought in a lot of new topics for instance.



I guess the topic level is just as important though, as you want all of your merging / moving features in one place - given sometimes you don't move the entire topic but rather one single reply.



Hope that makes sense.
A
@Mathis, makes perfect sense to do it at a topic and overview sense. Noted it down.



Hope to hear from other customers to hear how it impacts their work.
Julian old
Hi,



thanks for taking this into consideration!



First of all, I am now able to select and move several comments at the same time:



I am not sure if this is due to a recent improvement, I do not recall seeing these options at the bottom of a page. 🙂 So that means I can batch-process them, even though I have to move the OP seperately, as I cannot select it:





I have created a screencast of what I mean with number 2 in my comment:Click here

After defining a topic title for the new topic, the comments simply disappear. I would love to see a pop-up message after completing the action, confirming that a new topic has been created with these comments by providing the link to the newly created topic.



Cheers,



Julian
Julian old
And regarding the question if this should be available on topic level or within the overview:



I would use both but personally see more benefit on topic level: We do not have to merge topics too often, or merge multiple topics at the same time. We do however often move several comments into other topics or into a new one, so the emphasis for us is on topic level.



Cheers,



Julian
Yoeri
Rank
Userlevel 2
Badge +3
Hi @Mathis thanks for your detailed post. I've looked into this and see the effort it currently takes to merge two topics. Definitely room for improvement here. If I understand correct you want to: Merge an entire topic (first post + replies) into an already existing topic in one action, am I right?



@Julian old - Clear use case on "The new topic has left the building" 👍🏻 A confirmation would be nice indeed. We'll look into it.



As for batch processing of comments; do you have some examples of common use cases you do for processing comments?



Regards,

Yoeri
Yoeri
Rank
Userlevel 2
Badge +3
I see I'm a bit late to the discussion 😁
OVOdarran
Rank
Hi all



We are starting to see a number of duplicate topics being started or questions being asked that are very similar to something already active. Being able to easily merge them would be a big help and make life a lot easier to reduce this very quickly.



Darran
Community Manager // OVO Energy / Boost Power

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