Topic splits vs. creating new topics

[mbauman]

Continuing the discussion from On using `=` vs `:=` for assignment:

@mnemnion

Is that not the point of having the splitting feature? Conversations have a tendency to drift, and it’s seldom obvious in advance that an offhand comment related to the topic will turn into its own discussion.

…

Us mere users can’t gather up posts and bundle them into a new topic, so starting a different thread once it’s clear that we’ve drifted into some new interest means posting a new thread, posting a link to it in the old thread, and posting a link to the old thread so people can catch up on the conversation.

We do ask that folks try to stick to the topic at hand:

Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

That’s exactly what I did here. Wide-ranging conversations can be fun to have, but they’re hard to follow in retrospect and as a thread-less platform Discourse just isn’t very well equipped for long-running asides.

[mnemnion]

I withdraw my objection, I have to admit that I didn’t realize that reply as linked topic was an option. In my defense it’s a hidden feature, it hadn’t occurred to me that the arrow icon at the top of a reply was a button.

I’ll make a point of using it in future.

Edit to add: it might be nice to add a screenshot like the one above to the guidelines.

[mbauman]

I agree it can sometimes be hard to discern in-the-moment when a new topic would be warranted — but it’s just generally helpful to try to keep responses focused.

[jonniedie]

For anyone trying this: you have to first click Reply and then you can click the hook arrow icon @mbauman showed to reveal the option.

Took me a while to find it.