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60

For better -current- VISIBILITY, MERGE UP rather than DOWN

60 points posted to IdeaStorm by phubert 11/27/07

Merging into the EARLIEST submission has been the practice to-date at IdeaStorm.

But, we've had discussions about the nature of DUPLICATES where we've begun to define MANY such "duplicates" as, rather, "REPEATS" of issues that seemingly have seen NO attention from Dell.

Since we seem to have identified the need (or OUR need) for REPEATS, IF such "duplicates" are to be MERGED, wouldn't it make sense to merge the OLDER with the MORE RECENT?

What do you think?

After all, guys, does any of us really need POINTS????

sugarbear
11/27/07		 It`s not like the points are going to get us any thing.
phubert
11/27/07		 my thought for some time...
phubert
11/27/07		 In this case it would give the new guy points! :-D
cosh
11/27/07		 Have to disagree. Not fair to steal the idea from someone by merging in reverse. Not fair at all, and any improved visibility is only very temporary.

What I would agree with though is not merging duplicate ideas immediately, but waiting for a few days.
phubert
11/27/07		 steal? so we have ownership here? I'd suggest a couple of weeks, cosh. "a few days' doesn't provide the visibility. Of course that could be a site administrator feature to add: a countdown timer on items to be merged! A little AUTOMATION here, people! :-D
badblood
11/27/07		 I think this is correct. Problem is people will abuse the system
phubert
11/27/07		 people abuse anything and everything, bb... simply the state of humankind...
cosh
11/27/07		 So if someone finds an idea I've implemented and puts up another one the same, they get to steal mine? No thank you.

Additionally there's the awful bug in the software that double merges take away the "Merged idea" thing and the original title. So any ideas merged twice take all credit away from the original author - which shouldn't happen if you have one absolute original to put everything else into.
phubert
11/27/07		 My follow-up suggestion re: Recognition may obviate this one, cosh. And, of course I _did_ put this up FOR comments just as your own.
jorge
11/27/07		 We've already talked the whole merge fiasco to death, the merging of ideas should not be done anymore, but a linking/indexing of common ideas should be done instead, this way nothing is lost. Instead we're still here where they use the worse web software on the planet where nothing of any sense can be done. This idea would only confuse the whole process even further, so if you want confusion yes it would be a good option.
badblood
11/27/07		 hey what happened to dell_admin1. Has she decided to stop communicating with us or something? So like basically now we are just talking amongst ourselves....again.
cosh
11/27/07		 She'll turn up in a minute and tell us that actually the admins are always around and always listening. Ha ha joke we'll say.
winoffice
11/27/07		 I agree completely with cosh and I think that Dell should merge down rather than up. Not because of the points issue, but why should someone lose his idea just because somebody else copied it? Besides, this way the copier will be recognized as the writer when the idea was originally and still is that of somebody else. I think that the post of the original writer should be preserved and that Dell should continue merging down.
jervis961
11/27/07		 Not to disrupt the pink laptop discussion (did you notice the Dell commercial has a man using it?) but I have a comment about the idea. :)

I agree with cosh that this is a bad idea. Can you imagine the merger craze when everyone starts posting ideas copying the most popular ones? The first person with the idea should get the credit otherwise it would be like me saying I created the theory of relativity because I posted it here. Einstein who?

As for DA1 who knows what she is up to. I think she is sick of us (well at least some of us) and is hiding in the shadows watching....waiting...
zanlok
Feb 2		 merging is an evil I condone only as a last resort for identical ideas only.
for nonidentical ideas (most aren't), use an associative grouping system!
badblood
Feb 4		 I agree it should only be done for identical ideas. Similar ideas should be left alone. I'd put the idea up but it would probably be deleted.
zanlok
Feb 4		 Ha - undoubtedly! As with these last (distinctly "conversational") comments...     :)
badblood
Feb 4		 yes they are quite 'conversational'. It's my nature, I can't help it!
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