# Merging duplicate topics **URL:** \ **Category:** Community & Events\ **Created:** [4 October 2016 08:44 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248 "2016-10-04T08:44:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![beningreenjam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/beningreenjam/32/3544_2.png) [@beningreenjam](https://community.monzo.com/u/beningreenjam)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 08:44 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/1 "2016-10-04T08:44:37Z")
I see quite a few duplicate topics, mostly in feature ideas, of people repeating old requests that have gone stale and gotten lost in the noise of newer more recently updated topics. The way they’re being dealt with at the moment is just being linked to each other. Meanwhile we continue posting replies on both new and old. Is there not a way to merge those duplicates? ---
**Author:** ![alexs](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/alexs/32/2443_2.png) [@alexs](https://community.monzo.com/u/alexs)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 08:48 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/2 "2016-10-04T08:48:12Z")
It is possible but you need to be a Level 4 user > **[What do user trust levels do?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924/7?u=alexs)** > > Leader (4) Leaders are regulars who have been around forever and seen everything. They set a positive example for the community through their actions and their posts. If you need advice, these are the folks you turn to first. They can get to trust... which can’t be earned, it has to be granted… ---
**Author:** ![Rika](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/rika/32/45582_2.png) [@Rika](https://community.monzo.com/u/Rika)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:16 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/3 "2016-10-04T09:16:57Z")
@anon38211169 has done a great job on the travel threads. Not so sure the same merge could be done with some of the complex feature request threads though as requests often require linking in multiple other threads to explain reasoning. Discourse already heavily dissuades duplicate threads with pop up suggestions of existing threads that likely already answer the question during post creation. Short of trying to build some kind of directory of frequently answered questions, I’m not too sure what can be done here. I certanly don’t want to see the Monzo community become like other forums I’ve been a part of where users are explicitly told to use the search function or have their threads closed on sight with heavy handed moderation. ---
**Author:** ![alexs](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/alexs/32/2443_2.png) [@alexs](https://community.monzo.com/u/alexs)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:20 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/4 "2016-10-04T09:20:45Z")
> [@RichardR](#): > > Discourse already heavily dissuades duplicate threads with pop up suggestions of existing threads that likely already answer the question during post creation. This functionality is useful but we’ve seen so many posts asking duplicate questions. I have a [directory of FAQ’s](https://usecanvas.com/alexsherwood/monzo-community-references/6XdERY2qB7X2foLhhxCuK2) that I’ve put together & it would be straightforward to merge new posts with the existing topics. I understand your concern about threads being shut down but merging enables the conversation to continue, once the user’s been directed to the previous conversation. I’d still favor a light touch approach here too. ---
**Author:** ![beningreenjam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/beningreenjam/32/3544_2.png) [@beningreenjam](https://community.monzo.com/u/beningreenjam)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:26 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/5 "2016-10-04T09:26:55Z")
Agreed that @anon38211169 has indeed done an excellent job at housekeeping the travel topics. I don’t consider those a problem area either. > [@RichardR](#): > > Discourse already heavily dissuades duplicate threads with pop up suggestions of existing threads that likely already answer the question during post creation. This is true at least on the web community, but I haven’t noticed it when posting to the community from the mobile app (kind of obvious as there’s not enough screen space), which is where I suspect a lot of the duplicate feature requests are coming from. > [@RichardR](#): > > I certanly don’t want to see the Monzo community become like other forums I’ve been a part of where users are explicitly told to use the search function or have their threads closed on sight with heavy handed moderation. I certainly wouldn’t want a totalitarian forum run by George Orwell either, but I’d be interested to know what happens when a merge occurs. ---
**Author:** ![beningreenjam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/beningreenjam/32/3544_2.png) [@beningreenjam](https://community.monzo.com/u/beningreenjam)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:27 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/6 "2016-10-04T09:27:57Z")
> [@alexs](#): > > I have a directory of FAQ’s that I’ve put together & it would be straightforward to merge new posts with the existing topics. Wow! That’s thinking ahead. Very switched on. ---
**Author:** ![Rika](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/rika/32/45582_2.png) [@Rika](https://community.monzo.com/u/Rika)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:37 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/7 "2016-10-04T09:37:55Z")
Indeed, though duplicate threads is far less of an issue here than it is in at least one place I’m thinking of, it’s something that does happen too often to completely ignore. It feels like a solvable problem though, even if I don’t have a solid answer. Honestly, I’m impressed with your collection of links there! Here I’d taken to just reading every single post and remembering the key points to later search for, mixing it with outside research in to banking and payment systems. ---
**Author:** ![alexs](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/alexs/32/2443_2.png) [@alexs](https://community.monzo.com/u/alexs)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:40 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/8 "2016-10-04T09:40:47Z")
> [@RichardR](#): > > Honestly, I’m impressed with your collection of links there! Here I’d taken to just reading every single post and remembering the key points to later search for, mixing it with outside research in to banking and payment systems. Thanks, having the collection just saves a bit of time. Your approach is obviously well received too though 😉 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/original/2X/1/1cd9d0bab3a681d362b78551e31003664859f6b2.png) _Current Quarter_ ---
**Author:** ![beningreenjam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/beningreenjam/32/3544_2.png) [@beningreenjam](https://community.monzo.com/u/beningreenjam)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:41 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/9 "2016-10-04T09:41:43Z")
> [@RichardR](#): > > Indeed, though duplicate threads is far less of an issue here than it is in at least one place I’m thinking of, it’s something that does happen too often to completely ignore. I think you can get away with saying the name StackOverflow 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rika](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/rika/32/45582_2.png) [@Rika](https://community.monzo.com/u/Rika)\ **Post date:** [4 October 2016 09:45 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/10 "2016-10-04T09:45:28Z")
Not actually what I was thinking of but I suppose that’s exactly what StackOverflow does too! ---
**Author:** ![anon38211169](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/34f0e0/32.png) [@anon38211169](https://community.monzo.com/u/anon38211169)\ **Post date:** [7 October 2016 17:11 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/11 "2016-10-07T17:11:41Z")
Hey! For questions which have standardised straightforward responses, i completely agree with merging and closing duplicates. The difficulty is that some of these discussions start off asking the same questions and end up in quite different places. @alexs 's FAQ is a really great point of reference, we’re working on putting together a much more comprehensive FAQ section for the website over coming months. Having created pinned posts for bugs and travel, (two umbrella categories which I think a lot of these threads fall under) I would feel that that in time, the number of duplicates will fall for two reasons. 1. With some regular housekeeping, people will be able to find the solutions to their questions much easier through these threads. 2. Old duplicates which haven’t been replied to will automatically archive after a year (I could also look at possibly reducing the time before a post is archived, maybe 6 months?) Overall I think one of the most unique and appealing aspects of our community is that someone can access relevant and timely answers from a welcoming and knowledgeable user community at the click of a button. For me, it’s amazing to see and I’d hate to lose this through managing interactions too rigourously. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![alexs](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/alexs/32/2443_2.png) [@alexs](https://community.monzo.com/u/alexs)\ **Post date:** [7 October 2016 17:27 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/12 "2016-10-07T17:27:07Z")
> [@anon38211169](#): > > Overall I think one of the most unique and appealing aspects of our community is that someone can access relevant and timely answers from a welcoming and knowledgeable user community at the click of a button. **For me, it’s amazing to see and I’d hate to lose this through managing interactions too rigourously.** 🙂 I completely agree & just to pick up on this point - > [@anon38211169](#): > > The difficulty is that some of these discussions start off asking the same questions and end up in quite different places. this is why I wouldn’t want the topic to be closed as a duplicate - as long as the thread is merged pretty quickly, the discussion can carry on & sometimes end up with the different outcome but hopefully without the original discussion being repeated quite as often 🙏 ---
**Author:** ![alexs](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/alexs/32/2443_2.png) [@alexs](https://community.monzo.com/u/alexs)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 13:05 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/13 "2016-10-09T13:05:05Z")
Recently I’ve been trying tying duplicate posts together by updating the newer post’s title, to match the existing post’s title but with a ‘2’ at the end so that users can see that both topics are discussing the same thing, when they appear in their search results. For example > [@Limit Spending for Limited Time 2](https://community.monzo.com/t/limit-spending-for-limited-time-2/6295): > > A thought I’ve been mulling over for a while now and decided I’d propose it to more people for thoughts/views. How many times have you gone on a night out and spent waaaaay more than you wanted because you had a card to hand and just kept buying drinks because you could. What if/would it be doable if say you could set a spending cap on your Monzo card for a set period of time e.g. between Tuesday 10pm-3am you set a cap on spending of £30. The idea behind it being if you know at some point that … This does seem like it’s driving home the point that it’s a duplicate post to the user who posted the topic quite forcefully (especially as they can’t delete the topic themselves) but my guess is it’ll be quite useful for the rest of the community. Compared to merging one topic into another, it’s pretty ‘light touch’ too. What does everyone think, is this going too far? ---
**Author:** ![alexs](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/alexs/32/2443_2.png) [@alexs](https://community.monzo.com/u/alexs)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 13:07 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/14 "2016-10-09T13:07:13Z")
Following on from this > [@alexs](#): > > especially as they can’t delete the topic themselves @anon38211169 is it possible to allow users to delete topics that they’ve posted which don’t have any replies to them? If so, we could message the user to make them aware of the existing post, before anyone replies (& a new conversation gets started) so that if they chose to, they could delete the duplicate post… It was quite difficult to sort out a way to deal with this duplicate post, the other day [https://community.monzo.com/t/credit-card-with-fraud-busting-display/6289](https://community.monzo.com/t/credit-card-with-fraud-busting-display/6289) ---
**Author:** ![anon44204028](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@anon44204028](https://community.monzo.com/u/anon44204028)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 17:10 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/15 "2016-10-09T17:10:41Z")
I think alexs you have done a great job handling the issue of duplicate postings. It makes you wonder how many read recent or unread postings by others as so many duplicates have popped up recently ---
**Author:** ![alexs](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/alexs/32/2443_2.png) [@alexs](https://community.monzo.com/u/alexs)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 17:20 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/16 "2016-10-09T17:20:14Z")
Thanks Richard, I’m glad you think so. It is a little bit frustrating sometimes but I know how easy it is to assume that you’re the first person to have an idea or miss a strangely named topic in the search results so it’s all good! ---
**Author:** ![anon44204028](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@anon44204028](https://community.monzo.com/u/anon44204028)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 17:32 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/17 "2016-10-09T17:32:42Z")
if it is in any way some reassurance the problem is not just limited to this community, I regularly see it in other communities too ---
**Author:** ![jsmith300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8c91f0/32.png) [@jsmith300](https://community.monzo.com/u/jsmith300)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 18:34 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/18 "2016-10-09T18:34:41Z")
This is something that I posted about a while back. There are a few on here that do a fantastic job of answering the same questions over and over again. To be honest whilst I started quite keen to get involved in the community I’ve been coming on here less and less as I notice more and more it’s the same questions asked repeatedly. ---
**Author:** ![Jkb114](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/jkb114/32/1385_2.png) [@Jkb114](https://community.monzo.com/u/Jkb114)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 19:08 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/19 "2016-10-09T19:08:29Z")
I think that eventually this place will need some sort of community moderation. Something as simple as a few members that would be able to merge or delete duplicate content. Remove offensive or inappropriate content. But atm i believe @anon38211169 is keeping on top of everything. Keep it up pal 😋👊 ---
**Author:** ![Rika](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/monzo/user_avatar/community.monzo.com/rika/32/45582_2.png) [@Rika](https://community.monzo.com/u/Rika)\ **Post date:** [9 October 2016 22:11 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248/20 "2016-10-09T22:11:07Z")
We seem to keep having this discussion of community moderation while it’s nowhere near needed. Between how genuinely nice this community is, Discourse’s trust levels, flagging and the actions Naji, Bailey and the rest of the Monzo team that show up here take, this is one of the most pleasant and clean communities I’ve possibly ever participated in. This is even taking in to account some of the previous arguments that have happened. On an infinite timescale as Monzo grows, yes, some internal or external delegation of powers will likely be needed. At the risk of sounding like I’m on loop, when you’ve seen and tried to manage what comes out of the firehose at many gaming sites or anonymous image/message boards where you can’t trust users to go five minutes without posting a wildly inappropriate image or having a fight, you really appreciate this community and how truly great everybody in it is. ❤ [Next page](https://community.monzo.com/t/merging-duplicate-topics/6248.md?page=2)