How to prevent merging of posts in the forums? Thread

I just posted this in a Mod DB forum that I administrate:

pecoes wrote: Hi everybody!

Version 0.3 is out and all the bugfixes I wrote for this thread are included. Please, update!

I'm going to lock this thread now! If you find an issue with the new release, start a new thread, please!

Thank you all very much for your bug reports! Keep them coming! You've made this mod better!

As is hopefully self-evident I did *not* want this post to be merged with my last post in that same thread (which was about something completely different). But it *was* merged and there was squat I could do about it. So here's the question: Would it be possible to add the option to either 1) force new posts or 2) split them?

Thanks!

Edited by: pecoes

It seems to be a new moddb feature presumably to prevent people bumping their own topics. I haven't figured out for a way around it, but I haven't really looked for one.

Yes, I realize it's a feature and I understand the reasoning behind it. It just would be helpful if an admin could override that feature. There are plenty of scenarios where it isn't helpful. Imagine e.g. a thread that is really fast - almost like a chat. More often then not people will be editing their posts instead of making new ones. But people don't look to old posts for new content and so lots of stuff will go unread and the conversation will stutter and stumble...

Or here's another scenario: I come back two days later with the results of some idea I came up with in my last post. Since I have the misfortune that nobody posted in between, my new post is folded into the old one. Will anybody notice my new post as new now? I have never seen a forum where posts are merged after several days. Have you?

It is designed to not allow bumping. There is a reason for that.

Just make a headline using the header tags when you update.

Well I guess bumping can get a bit annoying at times, but I've never seen it abused to an extent, that would justify castrating the forum. Or to put it differently: Why should the rest of us suffer for the small minority we ignore anyway?

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Hello Henley!

It is nine hours later now and I am replying to my own post. So what happens now? Is this thread marked as unread in your Threadwatch? Does it say it has new posts? Do you get a notification that a new post has been made?

Edited by: pecoes

No because that would be the same as bumping... I am not sure why you would need to bump.

Suppose I get two bug reports. For the first one I already have a fix. So I tell the poster: "Here's the fix for the first one, so you can continue playing, but I'll have get to back to you about the other one." A few hours later I've fixed the other one and so I make another post. Except, of course, I don't make another post.

Edited by: pecoes

I think there should be a time limit to it at least. It's definitely useful to have this feature against bumping, but in many cases it's just annoying. If you put a time limit on it, a day or two, it could help out quite a bunch. And if people really want to bump their threads, they just tell their friend to write a reply or create a second account for themselves anyway.

cheers.