Managing topics and posts

Deleting a topic deletes every post in it, permanently, so move the posts out before you tidy anything away.

Topics are the community's structure. Before anything else: deleting a topic deletes every post in it, and a deleted post cannot be recovered. Move the posts out before you tidy anything away.

Add a topic

1. Click Add in the top menu bar and select Community topic.
2. Enter a Name and an optional Description.
3. Select a User segment to decide who can access it.
4. Under Who can manage posts, choose Managers for Knowledge admins only, or leave Agents and managers.
5. Click Add.

To change one, open it in the help centre, click Edit topic, and click Update. Only Knowledge admins can add, edit, delete or rearrange topics; agents and moderators cannot, whatever else they are allowed to do.

Move a post to another topic

1. Click the Post actions icon on the post and select Edit.
2. Click inside the Topics box and select the topic it belongs in.
3. Click Update.

A post in the wrong topic is a two-second fix. Asking the poster to repost it loses the thread and discourages the next person. Note that you cannot move a community post into the knowledge base; that is a rewrite, not a move.

Retiring a topic without losing its posts

An idle topic with three posts from last year tells visitors nobody is here, and removing it is usually right. But there is no merge: move every post you want to keep into another topic first, then delete the empty one.

Delete it while posts are still in it and they go with it, permanently.

Restricting who sees a topic

A topic is visible to everybody by default. You can restrict it to signed-in users, to tags, organizations or groups, or to agents and managers.

Three or four topics to start

Questions, ideas, and one or two subject areas. There is no limit on the number, which is exactly why restraint matters: a community opening with twelve topics looks abandoned on day one, because activity divided twelve ways is invisible.

Split a topic when it is busy enough to be hard to follow. That is a good problem, and splitting before it arrives leaves two quiet topics instead of one busy one.

Watch what people post about

Recurring questions in the community are articles you have not written, or articles nobody can find. Either way the community is telling you something the analytics will not.

See also

• Setting up the community
• Moderating end-user content
• What the community is and whether to turn it on