Another excellent idea! Not to make it anymore complicated, but possibly being able to link to the first Snap in the downvote reason as well might be a good idea, that way there is a mechanism to limit what snaps can be merged. I would imagine it would be a little bit abusable if people could just merge whatever snaps they wanted, and it would also show the reposter which Snap they should merge to.
Excellent points about the possible abuse. Perhaps such a powerful function should be left to the super-mods. If the merge didn't take away XP points from the poster, I don't see this being a major issue. But there could be confusion in regards to where someones snap actually went, but that can be solved by creating a little message saying something like "Merged with [SNAP A] located [URL].
Perhaps such a powerful function should be left to the super-mods.
Do super-mods work on front page material? Maybe it would be best for mods of individual tribes to curate reposts by merging them into other Snaps. That way tribes that it hadn't been posted in will still have the "original" repost and the loss of points from a certain tribe (assuming a merger in a tribe removed it's upvotes as well as downvotes) might help keep it off the front page.
The problem with that approach is the content (snaps) posted within tribes isn't owned by the tribes it submitted into. The user merely decides to bring it into the tribe for discussion, expanding on the content, etc. At the end of the day we cannot give mods (from multiple tribes) the power to modify/merge snaps with other snaps that have been posted, this would end up having the possibility of becoming a complete disaster.
Even if it only affected Snaps within that particular tribe? So say, if a Snap was merged with another in /t/pics but not in /t/photography, it would still show as two separate snaps in /t/photography. That way each tribe could have different policies on what exactly constitutes a repost.
That's my biggest fear, that once we start treading on territory this complex (solution wise), it may be difficult for anyone to actually grasp. I think the simpler we can do it, the better. Still something that is worth to consider, should we find an elegantly simple solution for it.
What if, as I suggested earlier, two snaps are merged when they link directly to each other, the younger snap becoming a related link to the older? It could provoke a button to confirm the merge. It could be broken if one or both remove the link. Both keep their rep with the older snap joining the tribes from the younger snap. That has the benefit of not requiring moderator intervention.
Excellent points about the possible abuse. Perhaps such a powerful function should be left to the super-mods. If the merge didn't take away XP points from the poster, I don't see this being a major issue. But there could be confusion in regards to where someones snap actually went, but that can be solved by creating a little message saying something like "Merged with [SNAP A] located [URL].
I'll agree that merging should be left to mods or super-mods.
Do super-mods work on front page material? Maybe it would be best for mods of individual tribes to curate reposts by merging them into other Snaps. That way tribes that it hadn't been posted in will still have the "original" repost and the loss of points from a certain tribe (assuming a merger in a tribe removed it's upvotes as well as downvotes) might help keep it off the front page.
The problem with that approach is the content (snaps) posted within tribes isn't owned by the tribes it submitted into. The user merely decides to bring it into the tribe for discussion, expanding on the content, etc. At the end of the day we cannot give mods (from multiple tribes) the power to modify/merge snaps with other snaps that have been posted, this would end up having the possibility of becoming a complete disaster.
Even if it only affected Snaps within that particular tribe? So say, if a Snap was merged with another in /t/pics but not in /t/photography, it would still show as two separate snaps in /t/photography. That way each tribe could have different policies on what exactly constitutes a repost.
That's my biggest fear, that once we start treading on territory this complex (solution wise), it may be difficult for anyone to actually grasp. I think the simpler we can do it, the better. Still something that is worth to consider, should we find an elegantly simple solution for it.
What if, as I suggested earlier, two snaps are merged when they link directly to each other, the younger snap becoming a related link to the older? It could provoke a button to confirm the merge. It could be broken if one or both remove the link. Both keep their rep with the older snap joining the tribes from the younger snap. That has the benefit of not requiring moderator intervention.