Topics on Quora should be merged together when all possible intents of the two topics are the same. This policy sets a high bar to cross and basically, is only crossed when the two topics correspond to exactly the same entity.
The need for topic merging frequently occurs for the following use cases
- Topics that violate naming conventions: “Pineapple” —> “Pineapples”
- Adjectives into nouns: “Barometric” → “Barometry”
- Misspellings, e.g. “Edumcation” —> “Education”
- Topics that acronyms or initialisms, “M.I.T.” —> “Massachusetts Institute of Technology”
- Overspecialization, e.g. “1212 Main St. Austin, TX” —> “Austin, TX”
- Unnecessary or ambiguous adjectives, e.g. “Best Hotels” —> “Hotels”
Sometimes topics that represent two very similar concepts will need to be merged together. This type of editorial topic merges are major decisions and should be discussed with community or with Quora directly before actions are taken.
Some notable types of topics that shouldn’t be merged together:
- An object and an activity with that object: e.g. “Guitars” and “Playing Guitar” or “Advertising” and “Advertisements”
- Similar concepts but distinct concepts: e.g “Astronomy” and “Astrophysics”
- Topics that differ in their disambiguation: e.g. “Happiness” and “Happiness (1998 movie)”