Merge "deletes" old topic, thus breaks old URL and throws away existing text

The use Response staff seems to have merged my response https://help.useresponse.com/responses/how-to-increase-precision-of-search-results-eg-using-and-or-not with https://help.useresponse.com/responses/can-search-on-partial-matches-be-improved

Two problems with the current behaviour of simply "deleting" old topics during merge:

1. The old URL (first one) is broken. That's bad, because that URL is in several other systems, so when visitors click it, they get a 404. That subscribers did receive a merge notification mail does not help those visitors - they have no idea why the topic is gone / the URL broke, and even searching for the topic name won't work, as the merged topic won't have the exact same name.
   Some possible solutions: Add a redirect from old to new URL, or keep old topic "alive in read only mode" and simply add a big fat merge notification at the top.
2. The two topics are only similar that they're about search, but they have completely different content: One is about introducing search operators (AND, OR,..) to increase search precision, and the other about finding search terms if they are parts of words to increase search recall. Hence the topics's texts are not the same as assumed in https://help.useresponse.com/responses/can-given-answers-be-merged-while-visible-for-users but they provide quite different aspects. It's not only information loss, but also renders the "surviving" topic not findable by searching for the words that appeared in the "lost" topic.
   Some possible solutions: Merge the texts of the "lost" topic into the "surviving" optic, or keep the old topic "alive in read only mode" and simply add a big fat merge notification at the top (and add a comment in the "surviving" topic about the merge, with a link to the "decativated" topic).

At least the URL shall not be broken.