More control over post-merging

The double-posting block was well-intentioned and I understand the point of it, but frankly, it's made a mess of things for people who respond to multiple conversations within a brief period of time. I always end up with two posts merged that are completely unrelated, and more importantly I see merged posts that I would be inclined to give an award to, except that I only agree with one portion of them. Any way we can have the option to turn it on and off? I'm sure we can be trusted to determine which things are related and which are not.

 

That didn't actually address any of the things I brought up, but if this is not a revisitable point than I guess I will stop discussing things in the Forum Feedback section.

 

I'm not sure where quotes came into this one way or another. I'm not objecting to quotes. I always respond with quotes. My point is that merging responses to two unrelated topics (whether separated by quotes or not) is fundamentally incompatible with a message board system that actively encourages people to "rate" comments. If I say one thing that you don't agree with in response to one subject and it gets merged with a comment that you do agree with in response to a different subject, you are left with the task to decide which one you wish to rate and no way of making it clear what comment you are or are not responding to.

Similarly, If a person does most of his posting/responding at a specific time of day (say, during a lunch break) it can have the effect of merging three or more posts that are completely unrelated to one another, making it that much more likely that a reader is just going to skip over them since it addresses multiple things that often arise as a specific subject gets more discussion and more elements and information are added. And that continues to fork and fork until it is hard to follow a conversation you're interested in one way or another without having to wade through stuff you aren't interested in.

I am not suggesting that the automatic merging of replies be done away with entirely, just that a poster might have the option to veto the merging of replies it if he doesn't feel the responses are related in subject matter.

But that said, I found the somewhat curt tone of the response very different from what I've come to expect in a customer service or "suggestion box" related circumstance, so I'm not sure there is any value to continuing on the matter. If suggestions, feedback, and comments are going to be responded to with nothing more nuanced then "No," with no actual explanation of the whys and wherefores then the whole exercise in providing feedback is kind of a waste of everyone's time.

 

No, I am not speaking of when someone posts a new thread on something already posted and the mods merge them because there is duplication.

I am speaking of when someone like you asks a question in a thread, I reply, and it ends up automatically attached to my reply to someone else above. It creates confusion when you are addressing more than one person about more than one thing.
Ie., "No more double posting. We've installed an add-on for automatic merge. Hooray!"