Moved topics and shadow topics: topic details are not synchronised

warmweer · Post by **warmweer** » Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:21 pm

Currently when posting in a shadow topic or in the original topic, topic details such as last poster and last post time (perhaps also post_count) are only updated in 1 topic.
The consequence of this is that the topic sorting order only functions as expected in the forum with the topic with the updated topic details.
Currently I can't come up with a justification for this so it's either a bug or an oversight or intended behaviour.

If it's intended behaviour, what is the intention/purpose/reasoning behind this?

Post by **Brf** » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:01 pm

I assume it is because there is no backlink from the topic to its shadow. If you post in the topic, its shadow would still have the old data. I was always under the assumption that the shadow's purpose was so the posters could find the topic's new home and the shadow would eventually drop off the bottom of its old forum's topiclist.

warmweer · Post by **warmweer** » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:35 pm

Brf wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:01 pm I assume it is because there is no backlink from the topic to its shadow. If you post in the topic, its shadow would still have the old data. I was always under the assumption that the shadow's purpose was so the posters could find the topic's new home and the shadow would eventually drop off the bottom of its old forum's topiclist.

OK, there's a purpose and logic in that.

I guess there was sufficient interest in that feature to code it that way (and I see no reason to remove that feature).

Currently a topic can be copied, moved or moved with shadow topic, but no possibility to create synchronous topics (a term I just invented to cater for a shadow topic with updated topic details (same last_post_time and last_poster) so that the sort_order remains consistent in the forum with the shadow topic.

I might just post an Idea (for that feature).

Post by **P_I** » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:57 pm

Brf wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:01 pm I was always under the assumption that the shadow's purpose was so the posters could find the topic's new home and the shadow would eventually drop off the bottom of its old forum's topiclist.

That's always been my understanding and usage as well. Rather than drop off the bottom of the old forum's topiclist, we've configured auto-pruning of shadow topics after a couple of weeks, which is when we figure the usefulness of the shadow topic has dropped to nil.