# "automerge doubleposts"



## CapnZapp (Jul 1, 2008)

What's up with this?

Aren't users allowed to post more than once in a row in any given subject?

Can I turn this off? I understand that avoiding double posts is nice - but *shouldn't the function first check so that the text is indeed identical in both posts* first!!?


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## Blackrat (Jul 1, 2008)

The answers are here :
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=233809


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 1, 2008)

In most instances where someone posts several replies in a thread one after another they could equally well have put it all in one post. The number of instances where it would prove problematic is very tiny in comparison to the number of headaches it resolves for us.

Regards


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## CapnZapp (Jul 1, 2008)

But does the code still delete copies of the same message?


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## CapnZapp (Jul 1, 2008)

Apparently not. (I just tried to post the exact same message twice)

In this case I'm getting an error screenie (see attached) instead.

So, could I at least ask you to modify the message? 

After all, your new function isn't automerging doubleposts, it's merging two completely ordinary and valid posts from the same author.


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## CapnZapp (Jul 1, 2008)

And, to my amazement, that post of mine didn't get automerged...? Was that because of the presence of the attachement...?

Still coming to grips with this...


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## Darkness (Jul 1, 2008)

CapnZapp said:


> And, to my amazement, that post of mine didn't get automerged...? Was that because of the presence of the attachement...?



I'll test it.


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## Darkness (Jul 1, 2008)

Yep, looks like auto-merge has vulnerability: attachments.


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## Jdvn1 (Jul 1, 2008)

CapnZapp said:


> But does the code still delete copies of the same message?



The purpose isn't to get rid of doubleposts, or to get rid of two posts that say the same thing.


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## el-remmen (Jul 1, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> In most instances where someone posts several replies in a thread one after another they could equally well have put it all in one post. The number of instances where it would prove problematic is very tiny in comparison to the number of headaches it resolves for us.
> 
> Regards





Headaches?

I don't remember double-post ever causing anything but the slightest and occasionally amusing inconvenience.  Can you detail how double-post ever caused a "headache"?

Personally, I see this feature as potentially really annoying in the story hour forum, more annoyance than a double-post ever caused me, anyway. . .


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## Michael Morris (Jul 1, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> Headaches?
> 
> I don't remember double-post ever causing anything but the slightest and occasionally amusing inconvenience.  Can you detail how double-post ever caused a "headache"?
> 
> Personally, I see this feature as potentially really annoying in the story hour forum, more annoyance than a double-post ever caused me, anyway. . .



The story hours aren't usually updated twice in the same day though. Further Story Hours might be better off migrated to the blog area (just a thought).

Note - it is possible for me to put a seperator into the merge like this:

-------------------------- Automerge ---------------------------

Also, I can turn off the feature on a per forum basis if it truly is a problem with Story Hours.


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## WhatGravitas (Jul 1, 2008)

Michael Morris said:


> The story hours aren't usually updated twice in the same day though. Further Story Hours might be better off migrated to the blog area (just a thought).



I think this is a great idea - a problem with the storyhours is that it is sometimes hard to read'em because of some comments in the middle. A blog-style format makes it easier to read and makes it easier to allocate the comments to each entry.

Cheers, LT.


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> Headaches?
> 
> I don't remember double-post ever causing anything but the slightest and occasionally amusing inconvenience.  Can you detail how double-post ever caused a "headache"?




Right back from when I started as a moderator, quite a bit of time was spent deleting double posts (except where someone had edited the double post into something funny). I'm still deleting a few double posts every day.

Perhaps 'headache' was too strong a word for it


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## el-remmen (Jul 2, 2008)

Lord Tirian said:


> I think this is a great idea - a problem with the storyhours is that it is sometimes hard to read'em because of some comments in the middle. A blog-style format makes it easier to read and makes it easier to allocate the comments to each entry.
> 
> Cheers, LT.




I haven't experimented with the blogs on here yet, but I'm skeptical if only because I have found the blogs included with other versions of messageboards to be difficult to navigate between posts and impossible to set it so it shows oldest post first - though that may not be the case here.

I think I am old-fashioned. I think I just like story hours in threads. 



Michael Morris said:


> The story hours aren't usually updated twice in the same day though. Further Story Hours might be better off migrated to the blog area (just a thought).
> 
> Note - it is possible for me to put a seperator into the merge like this:
> 
> ...





Well, not often. . . but sometimes.

In my case, I usually post a little note before or after an update that says when to expect the next one or how the writing is going, etc. . . And since I am super anal about the layout of my story hour I don't like those messages to be part of the same post as the story itself.

I guess it is just something to keep in mind if I ever do update twice in the same day.

I gotta play around with the blogs and see how I like it for story hours - I have not liked the blog functionality of other messageboards I have seen.


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## Nifft (Jul 2, 2008)

Michael Morris said:


> Also, I can turn off the feature on a per forum basis if it truly is a problem with Story Hours.



 How about for the House Rules forums? Lots of folks like to "reserve space" at the top of our threads in case our content exceeds the limits of a single post.

If there is a limit on post size, "handbook" writers need a way to indicate "save me one more". Or three more, or ...

Thanks, -- N


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## covaithe (Jul 2, 2008)

I just ran into the doublepost thing the hard way in the PbP forums.  I'm DMing a game there, and I made two posts in a row in the thread, just under 24 hours apart, and was very surprised to find them merged.  If my players are subscribed to this thread, will they still get email notification of a new post, given that my post was merged?  

If not, then I would really like to be able turn this off, badly enough that I would consider making a second account so that I could make dummy posts between my I-don't-want-them-to-be-merged posts.


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## Olaf the Stout (Jul 3, 2008)

Yeah, I'm not liking this feature.  To me it seems to cause more problems than it solves.  Are double post really that big an issue?

Olaf the Stout


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## Michael Morris (Jul 3, 2008)

Until we can figure out which forums to limit it to or how to modify it to clean up the implementation I've disabled this plugin. (One of the nicer parts of the new code base).


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## Nifft (Jul 3, 2008)

If there were a checkbox or something else you had to deliberately and explicitly toggle, it'd keep automerge for "careless" posts while allowing double-posting for "careful" users.

That would solve all my issues. For the vast majority of my posts it's irrelevant if the module is on or off; but for an important minority of posts, I want explicit control.

Thanks, -- N


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## Olaf the Stout (Jul 3, 2008)

Thanks for that Michael. 

Olaf the Stout


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## Graf (Jul 3, 2008)

Michael Morris said:


> Until we can figure out which forums to limit it to or how to modify it to clean up the implementation I've disabled this plugin. (One of the nicer parts of the new code base).



Thank god. This was making me insane.

It's bad for story hours, but its even worse for online games.

You're running a game  and try to respond to three or four people in quick posts and it turns into one massive undifferentiated mess.

Which you then need to edit and then people have trouble reading it anyway because they want to see a specific post responding to their question.

If you ever re-install the plug-in it'd be super nice to see it left *off *for Talking the Talk and Playing the Game.

(New board editor is seriously bad-ass btw. New formaters save so much time.)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 3, 2008)

Michael Morris said:


> Until we can figure out which forums to limit it to or how to modify it to clean up the implementation I've disabled this plugin. (One of the nicer parts of the new code base).




So, what's the current list:
- House Rules
- Story Hour
- _maybe_ Off-Topic?

Anyone have something to add or change?


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## el-remmen (Jul 3, 2008)

Why not make it WAY LESS than 24 hours? Can that be done? 

Make it like 5 or 10 minutes. . . I don't see double posts beyond that time limit really ever being an issue.


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## Greylock (Jul 4, 2008)

The next time I put up something like this:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=226559

... that's gonna be one HELL of a first post.


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## Graf (Jul 7, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> So, what's the current list:
> - House Rules
> - Story Hour
> - _maybe_ Off-Topic?
> ...



Playing the game.
Talking the talk.
edit: Plots and places too

Those two three are musts.

I'm still not convinced that this is such an awesome function that we need to have it.
Duplicate post stopping is good, but really when is people posting multiple times in one thread such a problem?

There are a few problem posters (or there were) but it's not really a problem now is it?
(And it's a social problem anyway).


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## Blackrat (Jul 7, 2008)

Graf said:


> I'm still not convinced that this is such an awesome function that we need to have it.
> Duplicate post stopping is good, but really when is people posting multiple times in one thread such a problem?
> 
> There are a few problem posters (or there were) but it's not really a problem now is it?
> (And it's a social problem anyway).




Yeah, actually the only place I found it usefull was the Hive and as much as I'd like to tell otherwise, we are a minority in there. It seems like the only thread where on makes multiple posts one after another that could all be in one post.


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## CapnZapp (Jul 9, 2008)

Michael Morris said:


> Until we can figure out which forums to limit it to or how to modify it to clean up the implementation I've disabled this plugin. (One of the nicer parts of the new code base).



Thank you.

Regarding limiting this, well, I mostly read and post in General RPG, so obviously I would want the functionality kept away from there.

I do realize that (and the 4E forums) are precisely the ones for which you'd want to enable it though... so again, thanks for having another go at implementing it.

And thanks for making the effort in the first place!


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