Could a single question appear in more than one forum?

<p>Particularly since the greenspun.com groups have moved over to

photo.net, it's become common for people to post the very same

question to more than one forum - for example, today's request for

comments on the EOS 3 power booster, which was posted to two different

groups within minutes of each other, and with a slightly different

title in a third group later in the day.</p>

 

<p>I'm not saying it's wrong for that to happen - that particular

question falls within the topic of (or at least within the type of

question which is common in) each forum in which it's posted, for

example, and the original poster may get answers from more people by

doing so. But it fragments the discussion, and for those people who

read more than one forum (whether in the unified view or separately),

the same question keeps popping up and up.</p>

 

<p>Usenet news has had a graceful way of dealing with this since the

beginning, or at least close to the beginning: crossposting. When

you post your question, you can list multiple newsgroups in which it

should appear. A single copy is posted, it appears in multiple

groups, and newsreader software can tell it's the same question and

not show it to you in each group you visit (some modern newsreader

software doesn't do this, but that's a design flaw in the reader

caused by a lazy designer or programmer).</p>

 

<p>Can something similar be done here?</p>

Steve, while I see you point I think the benefit would be outweighed by the detriment. I think it would be abused and mis-used and we'll have cross-posts everywhere. I do not use Usenet much anymore but I remember that, except in the most limited of circumstances, cross-posting was frowned upon. So much so that if any one did sometimes do it they would start by saying, "I apologize for cross-posting but...". I'd rather people think through the best place to post their question and put it there. Later if they get too few answers they can always post again somewhere else then. <p>I shutter to think of all the "Which is better Canon or Nikon?", "Which lens should I get?", "Which film should I use for my trip to xxxx?" and "Should I switch to digital?" questions getting cross-posted and showing up everywhere!<p>Besides it sounds too much like "composting", which maybe it is. ;-)

<p>Actually, crossposting is encouraged on Usenet - as long as the article is on-topic in all of the groups. It's spamming (the original Internet definition of it, used years before the junk email plague started - posting separate copies of the same article to multiple newsgroups) that's not.</p>

 

<p>I see your point about it possibly being abused; making it easier to post to several groups than the current way (which involves the extra effort of going back and posting the same thing several times) would encourage people to do so, whether their question really fits in each forum or not.</p>

On the whole, I think it would be better not to post the same thing on multiple forums, at least not all at the same time. If a question doesn't attract interest on one forum, you might try another one. Generally when I see the identical post on two forums in a short space of time, I pick one and delete it. This has happened a few times.

These might be by people who don't (for whatever reason) use the unified view. If they did they would see how ridiculous and unnecessary it is to post the same question in different forums.<p>

I think this points to the greater problem however. We have a big redundancy in forums. I understand that this is because of the recent forum migration but shouldn't we at some point work to eliminate some of these and create some others that are needed? There should then be only one logical forum in which to post a particular question. People should also be encouraged to use the unified view if for no other reason than to see what is going on in the other areas.