Okay. I’ve had many problems with this. One time I made a personal thank you to people that got changed to a reply on a Thanksgiving topic (that was pretty old) Another time was when I made a topic about weird variations of terms (I used grind my gears) that got struck as a duplicate because someone made a “what grinds your gears” topic. I have not created a lot of topics due to being scared that they would be misidentified as duplicates. Can we get some clarity on this?
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I don’t know about the rules, but you shouldn’t be afraid to post because of it. There are hundreds of discussion topics on the boards, no way anyone can remember them all. I don’t think you’ll get in trouble for making a topic that gets merged with another (Unless you’re doing it repeatedly, but I don’t think that’s quite the case).
You know, if you really think that a topic was closed/merged in err, you can PM the mod and ask them. They are human, too; they can make mistakes. I’m not saying you should argue with the mods (though you don’t seem like the type of person who would) but it doesn’t hurt to ask “Hey, this topic is actually about A and not really B, are you sure it really belongs on the topic about B?” They might say that yes, it does, or they might agree that it really doesn’t.
~W12~
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Sure.
It’s fairly simple. When we say “duplicate topic,” it doesn’t always mean “exact copy.” It’s an overarching term that we use to describe topics that have similar intentions. The goal is to avoid clutter and unecessary topics, so if there is a topic where your thoughts can exist, then your thoughts should go there. Similar topics are allowed only when they merit seperate discussion.
For example, when you created your “Thank you” topic. It’s nice that you were thanking people, but we already had a topic where that could go. Because your topic shared intentions with the Thanksgiving topic, it was moved over there. Your topic didn’t merit enough discussion individually to be kept separate, and so was closed.
Obviously that’s not always the case. We have a general Star Wars topic, and yet a Solo topic. Could the Solo topic be moved to Star Wars? Sure. The former obviously falls under the latter. Will it be moved? No. Why? Because Solo merits enough discussion to have its own topic. Another big exception is Creative Content. It’d obviously be crazy to have all MOCs or all artwork in one topic, so those get individual topics.
In sum, just look around before you create a topic. If you see a topic that would cover your thoughts, even if its old, put your thoughts there.
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i made a destiny two topic and a destiny two topic got made like a month after and nothing was done about it, rip