Mods Moving Threads Adds 1 to the Post Count
 

This is a minor question. I have noticed that sometimes the first post against a thread is sometimes from a Mod to move a post to a more appropriate forum.

This has the effect of increasing the post count by one and so knocking the thread out of the '0 replies'. When I see that a mod has answered, I know that either the thread is being moved or has been answered and will often pass it over unless it has relevance to me.

Is there any way that the mods can post to move a thread without them actually increasing the post count and with their post count being increased? This would then mean that the thread can stay in '0 replies', be moved, but the mods don't get "penalised".

I think that this makes sense, but please let me know if you need clarification.

You could just look at that as the penalty of posting in the wrong forum to begin with. ;)

Well, as I don't think this is possible as once someone replies, its going to add it as a reply. Though on the other hand, in some cases we're doing them a favor and bumping them back to the top of the list in whatever forum we moved it to.

Regards.

Thanks - it was just a thought as, over the last year, I have gone from someone who didn't really see a problem with double posting to someone who really dislikes seeing double posts. It gives me the same feeling as when my 6 year old daughter constantly asks the same question over and over - really annoying. :D

As funny as that sounds, that used to be my justification/rationalization before I became a mod. I first thought "Wow, that's too bad, they lost their 0 replies status..." Then I came to the conclusion you mentioned, and now I'm kind of stuck between the first post by XavierP and your post. However, depending on the reason for the move, I do indeed feel it justified to post to let the originator know which rule they broke to lose such status. If the thread is simply in the wrong forum, and no one has replied, I'll (occasionally) pass it up for a brief moment, giving it time for a reply, then move it; or as Trickykid mentioned, I'll move the thread, and reply to **bump** the thread for the member. It all depends on the thread, the situation, the members status (are they continually doing things against the rules?) and other factors.

Cool

The mod can not post a reply (and instead edit the post and make note of the move in the "edited reason" box) at their discretion.

--jeremy

My 2 cents - although the zero replies status can be fun if you're in an altruistic mood and want to try to help someone whose question hasn't been answered yet, that zero status is usually pretty fleeting at best. Just consider how many posts get knocked out of the zero status by someone replying with "Please post your fstab" or "Do you have Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"? (Both of which are perfectly valid responses of course, but which do not necessarily immediately lead to a resolution of the original problem)

To say it another way, I'm not sure that the zero status truly confers anything special to a post, apart from the fact that it would show up in the result set of someone clicking on the zero link. Along those lines, I would suspect that there are some folks out there who concentrate mostly on trying to be the first responder to a zero post -- that's totally cool in my book, but the side effect is that the zero status frequently only exists for a couple of minutes. With this in mind, I've always considered the zero status to have the most gravity on the older posts, not the newer ones. Where LQ really shines is when the community can kick around a variety of approaches to solve a non-trivial problem in a really creative, non-obvious way (and naturally I am excluding the General forum from this category) That's coding and hacking at its best, and those kinds of answers are much more likely to surface in post 17 or 23 than they are in post 1.

Again, this is just my 2 cents, and although flirting with the zero replies posts can be fun, there's a lot more action in the individual forums. I personally wouldn't sweat it if the zero status is lost after only a short period of time. -- J.W.