Why do threads in General Discussion take precedence over threads in Tech News?

[sazrocks]

Is there a reason that threads in other sections like General Discussion will take precedence over threads in Tech News? I've seen it a number of times that someone will quickly make a post in General Discussion or another section about a recent news event, but then a properly researched and cited post will be made a few minutes or hours later in Tech News. What often happens is the Tech News thread is taken down and merged with the thread in General Discussion despite having itself a much higher quality OP and definitely meeting the standards of Tech News.

 

An example of this happening today is this thread on the recent MyQ garage door API changes which are legitimately news and would be a great discussion topic for both the WAN show and the Tech News section:

 

The end effect of this policy is that if a topic happens to be posted first in the General Discussion section, then that essentially blocks any form of that topic from being posted in Tech News, regardless of the quality of the OP or discussion in the thread in General Discussion. IMO, if someone puts the effort into making a high quality OP for the Tech News section, that thread should be allowed to live alongside the other thread, or, if a merge has to be done, the lower quality thread should be merged into the news thread.

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, sazrocks said:

if a merge has to be done, the lower quality thread should be merged into the news thread.

The way merge works, it takes title of the selected thread and injects the first chronologically made post. We have no control over it. So usually we lock the original and allow the discussion to continue with the better.

 

In this case, it was merged instead. The original OP still is missing personal take, something that is required for Tech News topics in order for them to be more than just rewrite of existing article.

 

Where the topic is, overall, shouldn't matter that much. It doesn't stop the discussion, nor takes it to "lower levels of forum". I do understand that having Tech News topic has some more merit/buff. But for WAN Show for example, they have taken GD topics also, all matters on what writer sees important enough for discussion. So the buff of topic being in TN doesn't have similar value (imo) what it had some 3 years ago.

 

In this case, it could be moved back. But then we do open the can of worms that someone will use it as excuse for not following the guidelines themselves (classic "because others" excuse).

 

E: Adding that we are humans and make mistakes. There are couple of these per YEAR maybe. Mostly its something that is not news worthy (LMG hack, the Drama etc.) which still get TN posts as "updates" or just thinking they are first to post it.

Edited November 3, 2023 by LogicalDrm

[madsci1016]

24 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

The original OP still is missing personal take, something that is required for Tech News topics in order for them to be more than just rewrite of existing article.

 

Guess this wasn't enough:

Quote

My thoughts

Another day, more cloud based smart home services actively or passively screw their customers over. I had an automation to trigger an echo in my 1yo's room to play lullabies if she woke up during the night. Guess i need to buy a Sonos speaker now. 

 

[LogicalDrm]

6 minutes ago, madsci1016 said:

Guess this wasn't enough:

 

Thats the 2nd thread posted, not the first. Which would be this:

Quote

Recently, Chamberlain Group (the makers of like 60%+ of the North American garage door market) killed off third-party access to their MyQ API.

 

Popular home automation setups like HomeAssistant, HomeBridge, and HOOBS all relied on API access to for access to users' garage doors. 

Unless users happen to own a partnered car (Tesla, some Hondas, BMWs, etc) the ad-laden myQ app is now the only way to access any sort of smart functionality for MyQ garage door owners.

 

They have also killed off access to Alexa, Google Home and HomeKit integrations (the latter of which never formally existed at all except through third-party solutions). 

Thats short version of the article only. 

[Spotty]

When merging threads the first post chronologically will always become the main post. If somebody else later posts another thread discussing the same topic then it would either need to be merged with the first topic (becoming a reply to the first topic due to the way posts are organised chronologically) or be locked or deleted. If you want to keep the second post then you'd have to lock or delete the first post and explain to them "we like that other persons post more so we deleted yours".

 

In an ideal world this wouldn't be an issue if people followed the guidelines, both following the posting guidelines and checking for existing topics before posting. 

Quote

We've been receiving numerous complaints about duplicate threads in this subforum with some topics and articles being posted up to five times. Please check before posting to see if another thread already exists. Using Google search can help - put in your key words in Google and end the string with site:linustechtips.com - this will bring up all the results on this forum.

If you post a duplicate thread, it will be deleted without warning.

 

To more directly answer your question, posts in general discussion do not take precedence over posts in other sections. Topics that were posted first and already have ongoing discussion will generally take precedence over reposts discussing the same thing. 

[madsci1016]

4 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

Thats the 2nd thread posted, not the first. Which would be this:

Thats short version of the article only. 

Thats kinda his point, my "later on" tech news post was written better than the first post, had all the required tech news sections, cited links, and had all the discussion take place. But it feels like the effort is lost when all that good discussion gets swept up under the "first!" post instead. 

 

In this case I would have thought this would be the better way to resolve it:

36 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

 So usually we lock the original and allow the discussion to continue with the better.

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

1 minute ago, madsci1016 said:

Thats kinda his point, my "later on" tech news post was written better than the first post, had all the required tech news sections, cited links, and had all the discussion take place. But it feels like the effort is lost when all that good discussion gets swept up under the "first!" post instead. 

 

In this case I would have thought this would be the better way to resolve it:

 

Yes, so you didn't read my post fully then. Here, was human error. Which is rare, but happens. Its pain to undo it, more so since it only matters here for prestige and nothing more major (like accidentally merging wrong with official threads). 

[madsci1016]

1 minute ago, LogicalDrm said:

Yes, so you didn't read my post fully then. Here, was human error. Which is rare, but happens. Its pain to undo it, more so since it only matters here for prestige and nothing more major (like accidentally merging wrong with official threads). 

Ok, sorry it was a bit ambiguous if you were saying you admit this case in particular was an error here or if that mods make errors in general. Thanks for clarifying. 

 

As far as positive discussion forward, as far as:

 

9 minutes ago, Spotty said:

and checking for existing topics before posting. 

 

I did do this, and got 0 results. 

 

I did it just again, and they keyword that should have flagged all three posts "myq" still only returns this thread and not the merged thread. 

 

 Is there something wrong with search or is it some other issue? 

 

For reference chrome says there is 17 instances of "myq" on that page that forum search is not....... (notices the small text...) 

 

WAIT i see it. It was only searching the active post? What? Even though its the main search box at the top?

Wait, When you click the search bar in a sub forum it defaults to that post or sub forum only but doesn't even show you that till you click on the search box?!?!?!

 

AND it fades away seconds later? 

 

As a "i have to look at the keyboard to type" person, this is incredibly bad design/styling. I get were i went wrong now, but by the time i clicked the search box (while browsing the "news" sub forum) my eyes were already on the keyboard so i missed "This Forum" that is literally the reason i made a new (but better written) post in the first place. Since i saw no results, i assume no one posted about it. 

 

Ugh i need a beer early today.