When something gets messed up, there should be a way to un-mess it up.

Quote from calistyle : When an original thread's ratings will be hurt because of thumbs down votes being merged into it, there should be a way to remedy that. If moderators do not have the means to remedy that, then maybe they should. Or maybe they should delete - rather than merge - any threads that would cause an original thread's ratings to be skewed unfavorably. Like this...

Hi calistyle

We do

If a merge would cause a Thumbs-up thread to gain Thumbs-down, we do one of 2 things:

• Delete the repost that has Thumbs-Down
• Merge it and then get assistance from other Mods to bring the votes back up to where they were pre-merge

I can't say this (the bringing thumbs back up) has necessarily been done 100% of the time, as I can't speak for all cases, but almost all of the time it is.

In some cases, the merge is the better way to go because there may be many viewers and posts to the repost thread, so we like to keep the discussion intact (rather than throwing it away).
Makes for many confused members when a thread just disappears.