# Is there a way to make a thread show posts in chronological order? **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [July 23, 2021, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152 "2021-07-23T17:21:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/1 "2021-07-23T17:21:29Z")
A couple of threads recently got merged into one: > [@Cleveland Indians considering a name change \[Edit: It's "Guardians"\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleveland-indians-considering-a-name-change-edit-its-guardians/914323): > > Seems to be a new story: Good. Now you have posts all jumbled up chronologically. I assume there is a way to change my settings to make the posts go in proper order, does anyone know how to do that? ---
**Author:** ![CardboardBoxx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardboardboxx/32/7079_2.png) [@CardboardBoxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CardboardBoxx)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/2 "2021-07-23T17:28:51Z")
I had a scan through that thread and it all seems to be in chronological order, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search. What point is not? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/3 "2021-07-23T17:38:12Z")
See where it jumps 7 months forward from December 30, 2020 to today here: > [@Cleveland Indians considering a name change \[Edit: It's "Guardians"\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleveland-indians-considering-a-name-change-edit-its-guardians/914323/206): > > [Rumors are they have chosen a name and are not announcing it yet.](https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2021/07/cleveland-indians-have-picked-a-new-name-but-arent-quite-ready-to-announce-it.html) Then jumps back to December 13, 2020 here: > [@Cleveland Indians considering a name change \[Edit: It's "Guardians"\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleveland-indians-considering-a-name-change-edit-its-guardians/914323/254): > > Ideas/guesses as to the new name? Then back to today again here: > [@Cleveland Indians considering a name change \[Edit: It's "Guardians"\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleveland-indians-considering-a-name-change-edit-its-guardians/914323/296): > > It’s official: Welcome to the Cleveland Guardians! It’s all kinds of crazy, at least on my browser. I’m wondering if there is a way to fix it from the client side (via preferences maybe) or if the thread is just permanently screwed up. If the thread **isn’t** out of order for you, then maybe there is a way to do it in preferences and I haven’t done that. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/4 "2021-07-23T17:42:26Z")
It is out of order, as you say. It’s something to do with the merging process. Perhaps the mods can do something about it, but I don’t think we can. ETA: Apparently it’s not a bug, it’s a feature! 😀 > **[Moving posts into an existing topic doesn't keep chronology](https://meta.discourse.org/t/moving-posts-into-an-existing-topic-doesnt-keep-chronology/21392/4?u=greenwyvern)** > > Why does randomly stitching posts together that were in sequence in their original topic, making them completely out of sequence in the new topic and interspersing them between a bunch of unrelated posts in the new topic… make sense? That would... **CodingHorror** says: > Why does randomly stitching posts together that were in sequence in their original topic, making them completely out of sequence in the new topic and interspersing them between a bunch of unrelated posts in the new topic… make sense? > > That would destroy locality of replies. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/5 "2021-07-23T18:37:05Z")
Huh, this reply in that thread sums up the situation perfectly: > Because two threads were discussing the same topic, and the discussion was happening in parallel. A merged topic should represent the conversation as it occurred, no? Otherwise, as you scroll through a topic, you’ll suddenly shift back in time to a point when people were less informed and collective knowledge was less developed, and no one will notice because their mental model is one of a chronological conversation. If they do notice, they’ll wonder why all of a sudden people were talking about the previous state of things It is pretty jarring. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/6 "2021-07-23T19:21:08Z")
Approaching infinity. Beware of intersecting parallel ~~lines~~ threads. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/7 "2021-07-23T19:34:15Z")
Yeah, this is definitely a problem. It didn’t merge the threads; it concatenated them. I thought there was an option somewhere in the mod tools (along with the rock and the termite stick) to “rebuild thread”, which I thought might fix it… but now I can’t find that. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/8 "2021-07-24T13:31:04Z")
I tried fixing this once before in another thread. I couldn’t find any way to do so. If the threads are from weeks or more apart, it is important to merge the new thread into the old one. There is no reasonable fix after the fact. If the threads are concurrent, then the effect is less jarring at least. A sort by date thread rebuild would be really nice. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/9 "2021-07-27T20:51:09Z")
This was a case where they shouldn’t have been merged. Close the old one, put up a mod post with a link to it so that people can easily go see last year’s dumb “Cleveland Steamers” jokes, and keep the new one intact. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/10 "2021-08-23T02:26:13Z")
There’s no correct answer here; both approaches have their downsides. So pick your poison… ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/11 "2021-08-23T05:55:26Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > So pick your poison… I was pretty much asking if there was a way to pick my poison (that’s the point of the thread) but it looks like the answer is “no”. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/12 "2021-08-27T21:47:26Z")
_A_ poison was picked 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-make-a-thread-show-posts-in-chronological-order/947152/13 "2021-08-27T21:58:24Z")
But, but I’d rather have the arsenic… You will drink the cyanide and you will LIKE IT!