Should I subclass my Django model or just have optional field? Or something else?

Using Django Using the ORM
1

Hi all,

As a learning project I’m trying to create a disscussion forum. Over time I want to recreate a typical forum where users can create threads, reply to threads, reply to replies, react, report etc.

But for now this is where I’m at:

class Post(models.Model):
    post_body = models.TextField(max_length=2000) 
    publish_date = models.DateTimeField("date posted")
    author = models.TextField(max_length=200)     # placeholder, link to users table later
    
    class Meta:
        abstract = True

# Post that starts a thread
class ThreadPost(Post):
    post_title = models.Charfield(200)
    is_solved = models.BooleanField("is_issue_solved") 

# reply to a specific thread
class ReplyPost(Post):
    is_solution = models.BooleanField("is_this_the_solution")
    thread_post = models.ForeignKey(ThreadPost, on_delete=models.CASCADE)

The ThreadPost and ReplyPost are so similar. I wonder if I should just have a single non-abstract Post class with an optional post_title field. Just make it so that when a user clicks “create thread”, the title is not optional.

And since in future I’ll want users to be able to reply to replies, the thread_post = models.ForeignKey(ThreadPost, ...) line could probably just refer to antoher Post instance anyway.

Maybe I could move is_solved out to a seperate model too, which refers to the thread that solved, when it was marked solved, and which (if any) reply was the solution.