IPS V5 : Topics >< Pages Improvement Suggestions

[Dreadknux]

Hi guys, since v5 is right around the corner I want to put a stake in the ground and suggest a couple improvements to the otherwise super-cool "Copy to Database" feature that IPS has (it's one of the key reasons I'm migrating from my Wordpress install to IPS fully). Some ideas to make things a bit more holistic instead of looking like two apps that are sort-of talking to each other.

1. Option to Move Topic OP to First Comment

I'm currently using a homemade plugin to prevent the Pages record content from overwriting an existing topic's OP content, but it would be great to not rely on this and have something native that supports this. As an example, a community user might share some news along with some personal comment... I don't want my news team to lift that content, connect the thread with the Pages record, and then lose that user's comment or content.

Could there be a way for the original content to either be shifted into a 'first comment' that precedes all others (that might make things complicated if there are already many posts within the existing topic though)? Perhaps it can be inserted as an extra content 'piece' inbetween the synced topic/record content and the first comment/post (but something that can still be edited by those with the appropriate access rights), like so:

Pages Record Example:

Topic Example:

This way, community admins could use the Copy to Database feature and have sync'd OP content between both, while also keeping the original posts' content alive (which is also good for context if a following comment in the thread directly addresses something the OP originally said).

EDIT: I know that I could find a solution for this point to some degree, using Custom Fields in Pages, but while that could fix something on the Pages Record side via templates, I wouldn't be able to display any custom field content in the Topic as the example above. It would be great to be able to have a native solution that considers this, anyway.

2. Achievement Rules to Reward Topic Starters if their Content is Copied to Database

I'm trying to do this manually at the moment, but I'd love to have an Achievement Rule in place that allows us to reward either points or badges to users who make topics that are later copied to a Pages database. I mean, more Achievement Rules in general would be fantastic, but for the purposes of this thread I'd be most interested in having a Ruleset that allows for this kind of activity.

3. Unify Metadata (Views, Reactions etc) between Topic and Pages Record

It's a bit strange, but for some reason Reactions are not synced between a Topic OP and a Pages record that is created from that Topic (any reactions made against any comments to that topic are synced, though). It would be great if those gaps are closed up.

Also, I would like the views for a topic and a Copy-To-Database'd Pages record to be merged as one single number (at the moment, I can see that the topic gets 250 views and the associated Pages record gets 125 views - this should be a flat 375 views number printed on both the topic and the Pages record).

Many thanks for reading/considering!

Edited June 9, 2023 by Dreadknux