Orphaned threads

**spd106** · May 28th, 2007

From my perspective the current state of play is that a user starts a new thread to ask a question, then after some time period (a day or two) it goes unanswered and we step in to add a reply.

By checking the recent posts of the original poster (OP) often you can see that they haven't made any subsequent posts on this topic, so after you post a reply they then continue in the same thread until there is a satisfactory resolution or at least a path to one. To me this is the ideal scenario of an unanswered posts team resolution.

Sometimes though you find that the OP has started a duplicate thread or through extra searching finds a solution in another thread and continues on the same topic to hopefully find a resolution. In this case the older thread is now orphaned and is not necessary any more as the discussion has moved on.

So what is the best way to deal with this orphaned thread?

Currently I just let them go unanswered as the OP has received a reply and that's the ultimate goal. Also, if we were to add a reply such as "Discussion continues here <link>", this would bump the thread back up to the front page, forcing more current threads down and using up unnecessary resources.

So is this the best way to proceed? Should we be focusing on the OP's problem rather than making every thread more complete? Can we do both or is their a better compromise?

Comments welcome

**Lucifiel** · May 28th, 2007

Delete or combine the threads?

I'm not exactly sure!

**bapoumba** · May 28th, 2007

Originally Posted by spd106

Sometimes though you find that the OP has started a duplicate thread or through extra searching finds a solution in another thread and continues on the same topic to hopefully find a resolution. In this case the older thread is now orphaned and is not necessary any more as the discussion has moved on.

Hello

The best way is to report the thread to mods and give the link to the dup thread. If one is empty, we just delete it, and announce it in the remaining thread (there is also an automatic PM sent to the OP upon the deletion). If both got answered, we merge them.