If I edit a topic that has responses, to either fix a title, add a tag, or recategorise, the topic remains as-is in the posting order.
If I edit a topic that has no responses, it’s bumped to the top.
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around the inconsistency in how editing a topic affects its bump status on the platform. Stephen notes that editing a topic with responses—such as changing the title, adding tags, or recategorizing—does not bump it, while editing a topic without responses does. cpradio explains this is intentional, as edits to topics with responses may alter their intent. sam clarifies that this behavior is by design and not a bug, though users are encouraged to propose alternative designs. codinghorror adds that editing the last post does bump the topic, but editing the first post’s content (like title or tags) does not, unless the first post is the only one. Stephen argues this prevents community managers from performing basic housekeeping tasks, such as correcting titles or tagging, without inadvertently bumping topics. codinghorror suggests adding a reply instead, but Stephen counters that this is impractical for topics with no responses. sam mentions past discussions about allowing non-bumping edits by moderators or admins, but no paying customers have requested this feature.
This is intentional, as you are in essence editing the last post, which bumps the topic to the top too.
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I understand why it’s happening technically, although I keep that speculation out of my reports.
Either way it’s poor UX. It bumps posts that nobody responded to towards the top of the latest page, pushing active discussions down.
Unless you account for: “They could have altered the intent of the topic or its content to where it has now become a different discussion that may be of interest now”
Regardless, this is not a bug, it is by design, feel free to propose a new design but keep in mind that by disabling bump behaviour you would have some pretty serious side effects.
To clarify:
- editing the title, or adding tags to a thread that has no responses is an intentional bump
- editing the title or tagging a thread that has responses doesn’t bump the thread
The above behaviour is intentional and by design, rather than a side effect of the criteria of an edit on the most recent post in the thread?
Editing the last post in the topic, whether that topic has zero replies or 12, will bump.
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I guess that’s the problem here, technically the topic title and tags are considered part of the first post, which can also be the last if there are zero replies, but to a user they’re properties of the thread.
Sure, I can see category, but edits to the body of the first post, if the first post is the only post in the topic, is certainly a bump. And title, too, IMO.
That prevents our community manager from doing basic housekeeping though.
If a title needs correcting (or amendment, for whatever reason) or tagging for future discoverability it pushes current discussion down on latest.
Add a reply to the topic if that’s the case – is there any reason these topics must have zero replies?
I’m not sure how that helps. These are topics that nobody has responded to, that nobody wants to respond to for whatever reason. Tidying them up shouldn’t thrust them back to the front, surely?
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There was some talk of allowing a “non bumping mod/admin edit” but none of our paying customers ever asked for this so its not super high on our list. Its a mod/admin feature we would be open to adding if there was demand.
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