I don’t think we are being super consistent about how we handle these, although for the most part what we have been doing is leaving new related news stories as a reply to an original topic, instead of making a new General > News post.
Is this what people want though? Maybe when a new development comes up it does deserve its own post and discussion every time.
Honestly, my concern is getting these articles to more folks. People may not follow up on developments in older threads.
It may be good practice to allow both to happen. Instead of telling our community members to do one thing only, developments can be shared to the original thread and the new post about it. Then, moderators can share a link to the new discussion and let the conversation migrate naturally.
Also, we can figure out a litmus test. If there is a minor development or clarification on the original news story, it should be posted under that topic. Major developments are allowed to be posted on the forum, especially if there is a significant number of time that passed.
EX: Apple removing ADP in the UK can be one topic. An EFF blog protesting it can be under that topic as well. ADP being restored due to US pressure is major enough to warrant a separate post, but it can also be posted under the first article topic. ADP being removed again because of a refined technical capabilities notice should not be posted under an existing topic because of its severity.
We can split the difference. Have the new thread but link it in the old thread too (as an FYI of sorts).
New thread makes sense to me because
there’s an update that may likely have different things to be discussed, based on said update and its particulars
its easier to point it out to people like I said instead of sharing the OG thread and have people read through it all to find the right link somewhere in the middle
The question is how does one evaluate which update should or should not get a new thread because sometimes, it’s just an update to the OG bad news for example. No new thread needed. But when something is changing out the OG news item that was shared, that can deserve a new thread.
Yeah, in certain cases I could imagine if an update happens what we could do is lock the old thread with a message saying “discussion continues here” and a link to the new thread, and that could make this a bit cleaner.
I would just want us to be careful that we don’t do this if the old thread might legitimately still need to be discussed independently of the new update. We’d want to only do this if the new update pretty much definitively supersedes the old story. That needs some thought…
This happens often enough to deter someone new to dive into something to learn because it would take ages for them to get through all the comments, opinions, etc. to then formulate their own opinion after. Time consuming process that may deter people from engaging in important topics (as mostly only important topics become long threads).
I don’t see what you all see as admin of the forum but can’t there be an explicit mention of the new thread for why the old one may or may not be necessary or be kept open. I have ideas to “solve” or mitigate this issue but there will be a lot of moving parts for the mods to keep up with and for users to flag and be mindful of the new rules alike.
