Thread 5613

Recently (if the last three or four years counts as recent) I've noticed there's a trend in moderation where janitors or moderators will delete new threads for a topic if a thread for that topic already exists.

Could we not do this?

There are a lot of cases in which I think it might be reasonable, for example, if the board is actually being overrun, or somebody is flooding and deliberately trying to start shit, or two copies of a general thread were made within one minute of each other and it was obviously a mistake, but outside of that I really don't think this is something that should be in the remit.

I don't know, fellow jananon. I feel like in some boards there are multiple types of the same threads being made all the time. If this was allowed to occur, half the threads or more of a particular board could become nearly identical. This bumps good threads off and lowers the overall diversity and enjoyment of the board for its users.

In one particular board I janitor, we even got a BR instituted for "duplicate thread" to address the serious issue of multiple threads on the same topic.

I think your concern is potentially a board-specific one, and it may be a good idea if you see it as a problem to bring it up to the higher-ups, but in the meantime, I wouldn't count on others changing the way they do their job.

>>5614
I guess every board has its own circumstances. In most cases I was thinking of, the thread which got nailed was no. 2 of its kind.

The OP is about as specific I want to get in an open venue like /j/ though, so I guess I'll (probably not) look into other channels for it.

>>5613 (OP)
I agree for the most part.
There's obvious exceptions, of course, but I think in general moderation shouldn't encourage general-like behaviour on boards that aren't general boards. Multiple parallel threads can be a good avenue for discussion and isn't something we should explicitly discourage unless it's a clear case of deliberate spam.

>>5615
Oh definitely, that's why I didn't get into too much detail, either.

Hopefully you can work with the higher-ups to get the issues on your particular board(s) resolved. :)

>>5613 (OP)
As >>5614 said, the way of handling the issue varies from board to board, as the reactions and abuses that can surface from posting duplicates are not the same between them.
For example, boards like /mu/ have duplicate templates because posters try to advertise their music outside specific threads, or just ignore the current thread and post a new one hoping to have their name in the OP. This can get out of hand and the board ends up with 10+ similar threads, all mostly empty.

There's also the catalog, which is never used enough. I janitor /wg/, and duplicate threads are common there, too. And while I rarely delete duplicates, its easy to see why having several threads of the same topic can be harmful: none of the threads last long, because the fans are scattered. This increases the speed at which these threads are created, affecting threads with less popular topics and decreasing the variety of the board as a whole.


Being overzealous against duplicates can be harmful too, it angers the users and promotes the creation of generals (rarely a good thing).

What's the specific situation you want to avoid OP? Which board?

On /jp/ we get people who keep making multiple threads about the same character, it gets a bit stupid to have 5 different threads about "Patchy's Feet" or whatever inane Sachiko topic bumped once a day for months.

There is a fine line between deleting a duplicate thread and enforcing a topic into a general.

Looking at the times the thread was made, number of posts, how specific the OP subject is can help to determine if it is another thread or a duplicate thread.

Often combining an actual duplicate thread early on will enliven the subject with its users not being split.