"This topic will automatically close in 3 months" - NEW issue: Wikis!

@DanRathbun’s recent creation of a “Wiki” style post - with an accompanying “This topic will automatically close in 3 months” at the bottom prompted this. Despite having become accustomed to seeing the automatic closure, I was surprised it was applied to a Wiki.

Given that the purpose of a Wiki is to encourage public participation in content creation, it makes no sense (at least to me) to automatically close it!

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calling it a Wiki does obviously not change anything technically, it’s still a posting which would need to be excluded manually from being closed after 3 month… which is still of no benefit for anybody besides forum admins coming from the tech. support area where only a closed ticket is a good ticket :wink:

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I am hoping that the closure will only apply to the thread (ie, creating new posts,) …

… and hope that the wiki post can still be edited after thread closure.

@sam Can you enlighten us ?

You can quickly test it as a non-moderator user to confirm, but I think you will still be allowed to edit the wiki even if the actual topic is closed, not :100:% sure.

How can I test this quickly, if it takes 3 months for the thread to automatically close ? :rolling_eyes:

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Regardless of the mechanism of testing, if at some point it’s possible for anyone to edit the original post, but not add to the discussion thread, it kinda/sorta defeats much of the value of a Wiki - to be able to discuss points before editing! If all anybody can do is edit, then I foresee editing wars.

I still think Wikis should be exempt from ANY automatic closure.

Tagging: @sam @DanRathbun

<edit approx 10 minutes later>
Actually, I’m also in favor of eliminating ALL automatic closures, but that’s a wider topic that has been, is, and will be discussed elsewhere! As a special case, I have better (I think) better arguments for exempting Wikis than for eliminating all automatic closures.
</edit>

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I agree. But currently the “wiki” feature applies to posts, and not topic threads.

This just shows that the autoclose feature, in practice, has unwanted side effects.

Users with high privileges (sages, etc.,) should be able to switch off auto-close if they are creating a perpetual discussion or help thread (and do not intend that there ever be a post marked as a solution.)

OR

Auto Close should only apply to solved threads.

@sam, You may have missed the general discussion in this thread (where I’ve restated my 2 thoughts above.)

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We don’t just “call” it a Wiki. The original poster has the ability to designate the OP as a Wiki - which allows other users (perhaps limited to the upper user privilege levels - I’m not sure of the details) to edit the original post.

Thus the first post in a thread becomes a community edited entity.

I’d call that a technical difference.

The feature is not limited to the first post in a thread, nor only threads I’ve started.

Let me convert this post to a wiki … (just to make the point,… done.)

but do other users stay anonymous?

Dan: I know that was you John, by looking at the edit history. :wink:

But only the person with “Admin” rights to a post or reply can make the change to/from a Wiki. So @sjdorst can’t change this thread reply back to a normal reply. Only @DanRathbun can do that.

Dan: True, Steve, but this doesn’t really have much to do with auto close.

Steve: Dan is correct that this doesn’t have much to do with auto close, but I was testing the ability to make/unmake replies as Wikis and I had to add something! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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FYI, I found a couple of FAQ threads over at Discourse Meta > Howto > FAQ:

Sam you are correct, came upon the following over at Discourse Meta:

Jeff Attwood (co-founder) in Discourse support: Best practices for archiving topics, says:

Close only prevents new replies.
and
Archive freezes a topic in carbonite so nothing about it can ever change. Ever.

I’m happy to now understand the difference between a closed topic and an archived topic. Meaning that, even after a WIKI topic is closed, we’ll still be able to edit the individual posts that were marked as “Wiki” by their authors.

But I remain of the opinion that this serves to negate what I see as the essential parts of a Wiki:

  • A single entry (post, thread, whatever) that is editable by any person with sufficient trust level and
  • An associated discussion thread where edits (both proposed and implemented) can be discussed.

Auto closing a thread with one or more posts marked as “Wiki” defeats the second criteria.

Yes, I agree.

After looking at the Discourse Meta category structure, I think that we need a Meta > HowTo sub-category similar to what they have, that would be only for informational Wiki / FAQ threads on using the SketchUp forum.

  1. This sub-category should have auto-close disabled.
  2. It should be encourage to post Wiki FAQs and HowTos in this sub-category.

The main Meta category would remain the discussion category for forum issues, as it has been and it’s expected to be.

(Similar to how there is a Tutorials category only for tutortial threads, and a sub-category for requests, discussions and critiques about tutorials.)

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