What's Wrong With Having Multiple Threads on the Same Topic?

As the title says, why is this a problem? It could be touching on issues that may get hidden away by talking on other threads. Is there really a problem with this or do you simply not like multiple threads with different ideas, some of which criticize the writers and editors on this site?

If your thread got closed/locked pm the mods, don't make another thread.

@ripelivejam: maybe I want it to be an open discussion and debate.

@anxioustube: Maybe expecting people follow the exact same discussion in two separate places is a bit much. Also, is it that hard to post your opinion in an existing thread?

topic: Red is the best colour.

John: I disagree, yellow is the best colour.

Julie: No you're wrong, you see in Thread 3 there was this scientific evidence that red is the best colour.

John: Well i didn't see that thread, i just respond to what is being said here.

Julie: Wait, let me link it to this thread so that we all know about this evidence.

John: Why do we need multiple threads if you're just going to copy stuff to this thread already?

@onemanarmyy: I see no problem with this. Scholarly work requires this all the time.

@gaff: I wasn't even aware there was another thread, or if it was discussing the issues I had. It's not hard to post in another thread, but the point was to ensure that it was not inundated by the hundreds of other responses on the, "main," thread.

@anxioustube: Scholarly work =/= online message boards. There are some many reasons why this comparison does not work that I don't know where to begin.

Multiple threads fragment the discussion, lead to rehashed arguments, and make it harder for people who don't want to talk about these threads to find other active boards that they are interested in. Also, if you don't keep it to one thread, there is no defined bound on how many you should have. What is to stop me from disagreeing with your position, and making my own thread that says so? Then you can make another thread to counter my rebuttal?

@thesteve19: Again, what is wrong with any of that?

@anxioustube: It would make the boards a nightmare to use for most people and cause people to disengage from them.

@thesteve19: You mean the nightmare of moving between two different threads? Oh golly, how will we cope?

I don't mean to sound crude, but I really think this is a ridiculous issue.

It's just redundant and could easily make these boards unmanageable

@tajasaurus: Anarchy you say? Something moves me towards that, especially on the internet.

As someone who doesn't really care about Metal Gear games, I think we have enough threads about that game, much less seeing several threads about the same thing. Everyone at times thinks "that thread is too long, and my voice will be lost there," and they're probably right, but it's better than the alternative.

@spaceinsomniac: If they're right, then what's the problem with it?

@anxioustube: there's nothing anarchic about having to wade through forty threads saying 'here's why quiet is always naked', it's just tiresome and annoying

@tajasaurus: I know why Quiet was always naked. That was not my point. My question regarded why we must be upset, specifically as Jeff was, and take issue with how Quiet is depicted in the game - especially when a uniform of Quiet's completely removes her chest.

I understand you didn't know there was an existing thread on the Quiet issue, but if you spent a few seconds looking at the first couple of pages of threads in the MGSV forum (which you didn't even post your thread in...it was in General Discussion), you would have seen it. It's a rather lengthy thread that has been going on for quite some time, and if you take the time to read through it, I think you will find that there are a number of people who share almost your exact same viewpoint on the matter. I encourage you to take some time to do so, and then post your thoughts in that thread once you've caught up on the discussion thus far.

As far as your question, allowing duplicate topics is completely counterproductive to having any kind of worthwhile, ongoing discussion on forums in general. If someone has something to say that is significantly different or unique compared to what is in an existing thread, then we definitely take that into consideration when deciding on whether to allow it or not. You'll find that this is a pretty typical policy on many different discussion forums all over the internet. The reason why it's such a common practice is because it just makes sense to do it this way. Allowing many duplicate threads on the same topic only serves to splinter discussion into different places for no reason, while also needlessly cluttering up the forums with additional topics that could be much more easily managed and kept track of if they were in one thread.

Things may be different if users had the ability to hide specific boards from view, but as moderators we also have to keep everyone in mind when managing the forums. As it stands, over the past couple of weeks the forums have been absolutely inundated with Phantom Pain topics. So much so, that we have received complaints about how many topics there actually were, and there is even now a renewed interest in a feature request to allow users to hide boards from view if it's a game they aren't interested in.

Allowing even more topics for an individual game than we otherwise would have is a disservice to everybody. It would suck for people interested in the discussion, because now they have two or three (or even more) nearly identical threads to try and keep track of and remember which reply they posted in which thread and what direction the discussion in that topic was taking. It would also suck for people not interested in discussion about that game, because now instead of one Quiet topic, they've got two or three (or even more) taking up valuable front page real estate for no real reason.

So yeah, this was a long reply, but I hope this gives you some insight into why things are done the way they are and hopefully this makes some sense to you. I get that people want to be heard and understand that sometimes it may feel like your post is just going to get ignored, but if you truly have something meaningful and interesting to say, trust me, people who are interested in discussing that subject will take notice. But again, this all comes back around to having an ongoing discussion in an online community like this. Everyone starting their own thread would not lead to more meaningful discussions, it would just lead to more noise.

Finally, I'd like to direct you to the Community Rules for one item in particular:

Duplicate threads: Be sure to use to the forum search to check that the thread you are creating doesn't already exist, as duplicate threads are subject to locking or deletion.

If this doesn't clear things up to your satisfaction, please send the mods a group PM using the link found in the Community Rules and we will be happy to discuss things with you further.