Can you merge similar ideas?

This is absolutely essential. I thought this was already possible. This is really bad news. Please do this as soon as possible!!!

You can do this however you want, but one way is to select a topic, Topic 1, and click a button to merge it into another topic, Topic 2. Here's how this could work:

1. You are in Topic 1. You click Merge.
2. You select Topic 2 from a dropdown.
3. You select whether Topic 1 is merging into Topic 2 (ie, the resulting topic will essentially be Topic 2 but with Topic 1's votes and replies and maybe even description text) or whether Topic 2 is merging into Topic 1.
4. You check or uncheck boxes like "Merge replies" and "Combine votes."
5. You give the new merged topic a name (optional, but giving admins the ability to clarify a topic by giving it a new name is extremely valuable).
6. You click Done. 

Here is my take on your questions:

• Should replies to the topic be also merged or not?
  • Yes. 
• What should we do with the votes? Add them up or keep the votes from one of the merged topics?
  • Add them up. Definitely. 
• What should be done with the topic titles and texts?
  • Have the person who is merging be able to create a new title. Have the text of Topic 1 simply be added to the text of Topic 2 (with a "<br> --------- <br>" between them). Or just keep the text of Topic 2, the one being merged into, and get rid of the text of Topic 1. 
• Whom should we make the author of the merged topic?
  • The author or Topic 2, the one being merged into. (I actually don't care. This is just a thought.)

It is not possible to merge ideas (or other topics) at the moment. I'll covert your question to idea, so users could vote for it.

By the way, we discussed this feature before and a few questions rose regarding how it should work when you merge two community topics:

• Should replies to the topic be also merged or not?
• What should we do with the votes? Add them up or keep the votes from one of the merged topics?
• What should be done with the topic titles and texts?
• Whom should we make the author of the merged topic?

Feel free to share your thoughts!

Thanks Edward.

My thoughts

• yes
• add them up
• keep the title of the one posted first and reference the merge ticket title and text beneath
• the first post

This seems pretty essential, I can feel the multiple bugs coming in. Should we just edit a post and say "Duplicate" on it?

Perhaps you should then be able to Lock a topic, or just give us more options for what the status of an item can be

Yup, would love to see this. Can votes then be combined on merged topics then?

Would love to see this feature included in the product! We tend to have Users who post multiples of the same thing and with up to 200+ people participating in a community it would be hard to manage deleting duplicates and copying the comments over into the original.

• Should replies to the topic be also merged or not?
  • Yes
• What should we do with the votes? Add them up or keep the votes from one of the merged topics?
  • Apply them to the merged idea unless there are duplicates (one person has up voted both ideas so when merged, the idea will only have one up vote.)
• What should be done with the topic titles and texts?
  • Personally if it's the same topic, the titles and text should be similar enough to not really keep. I would prefer a warning before the merge that the titles and text will deleted or archived. This would allow me to copy any information and post it into the idea thread if needed. 
  • Or the idea that is being merged into another is archived and in a reply comment, it is linked to the original idea and the title and text is in the reply/
• Whom should we make the author of the merged topic?
  • The original author of the idea that the other ideas are being merged into.

Naturally, if a user has voted on both topics that are being merged, their vote only counts as one vote for the resulting topic. 

Thank you for your suggestion. I hope it will get popular support. In the meantime you can mark such ideas as "Rejected" ("Rejeitato") or delete them.

I need the option "duplicate" for ideas in my admin panel.
Because customers add duplicate ideas and i would like to mark them as duplicates.

Or how should I proceed in these cases in helpcare?