Continuing the discussion from Ability to NOT close topics (after x posts) in some categories:
Can someone explain to me how this works?
I know there is an option to auto-close topics in a category after a certain timespan. How do I do it based on the number of posts?
My use case is rather the opposite:
I recently thought about limiting the number of posts in a category more than the site setting does.
I see, I think I got all the settings confused a bit:
I think this is the feature request we want (cc @dax )
Allow you to select hours/days/months/years and new one posts!
Would that cover the use case, Ill move this over to feature then or reopen @dax’s with more clarity?
The original topic is quite old and I didn’t remember all the details, but re-reading it now I believe @Moin is right in identifying the key point.
Back then, our use case on the support forum was to avoid long, sprawling discussions in support categories. We wanted to keep topics focused and concise, no more than 100 replies (ideally less then 50), to encourage users to actually read through the information instead of skipping to the end. However, we didn’t want to use a time-based auto-close, because even months/years later a topic might still be relevant due to our software’s extremely slow release cycle (basically only patches and security updates).
At the same time, we had non-support categories (like politics, economics, and general discussion) where we didn’t want any artificial limits. These were meant to be more community-driven, with freer conversation and minimal moderator intervention.
So the goal was to be able to apply post count limits selectively, category by category, instead of globally. That way we could keep support topics lean, but allow open-ended discussions elsewhere (without getting into mega-topics of course).
I was tossing some ideas around with Moin about topic timers earlier. There are often lots of different feature requests wanting more flexibility around these for a variety of things and I was wondering if having a dedicated Topic Timer config page would be more desirable. This would remove some options from the category settings and make those pages less full, as well as allowing you to have an overview of all of your pre-set timers/limits site-wide as a bonus.
I was thinking of it being a page where you could build your timers a bit like the existing UI for adding a topic specific one and they get added to a list (similar to Automation, or adding an alarm on your phone). With the right pieces in place you could then set a variety of timers for a pattern like [timer type] + [topics to target] + [condition]
This should allow for more flexibility in setting up specific versions for one or more categories, without being too complicated (for the admin).
