For several years the reply to “How do I ensure a wiki post is bumped when it’s edited?” was to close the topic to prevent replies and delete all replies below the wiki. Then edits on the wiki post were edits on the last post and edits on the last post meant that the topic was bumped. [image] When wikis are edited, they should be bumped Feature This has come up many, many times before. Best option here is to immediately close the wiki topic and delete the “closed” small post. Then the wiki will be the latest post and all edits will cause timestamp bumps. This idea was discussed previously, but has not been implemented at this time: [image] Editing a post should make the grey unread count appear in the topic list Feature I’ve been doing something on our forums which allows for an interesting workaround. We have certain topics dedicated to software downloads. When a new version is available we do the following: edit the download topic, adding a link to the new release add a post to a related ‘release notes’ topic with the changes included in that version visit other specific bug/feature topics, and close them with a link to the release notes post for that version In order to make the download topic bubble to… [image] Updating a wiki post, doesn't put it to the top of latest Support You’ll need to make sure you always edit the last post as a part of your cycle, then. [image] Wiki Updates and Tab for Wikis Support A little workaround here is to delete the “@robmeade closed this topic” post. Then the first post is the last post, and any edits would bump the topic. Personally I think it would be a cool feature. It’s not on any official roadmap right now, but there’s a topic here: I think a lot of communities do this by having a category dedicated to wikis. On meta we have #howto, where a large number of topics are wikis. You can toggle the category setting so that all new topics in a category are auto… Now edits on the last post no longer cause a bump in the topic list. So how does everyone track edits on wikis now? I know you can watch topics to receive notifications about wiki edits. But for me it’s not the same. I cannot set a single topic to be watched by all users by default. But they would all see when the topic was bumped. Even visitors can see that a topic is bumped while you need to log in to see your notifications. Also I think the bug report that those notifications aren’t reliable is still open Sporadic Wiki Post notifications and there was another report recently which also mentioned that notifications do not always work Subsequent Wiki Edits by Same User Don’t Trigger Notifications. So notifications and watching don’t seem like a replacement for bumping wikis after an edit for me.

This sounds like a feature request. How would you like Discourse to notify about wiki edits? Wikis are already special so maybe we need a new site setting to enable wiki edit notifications and a user pref about when to be notified about them.

If I had a great idea, I would have created a feature request or replied to one of the many existing ones. I’d take bumping back. But I don’t think it’s helpful to ask for a feature that was removed. I understand that it can be annoying for small typos. But I guess there were reasons why you decided to remove bumping on all edits, instead of, for example, preventing it on small changes, similar to how small edits aren’t tracked within the editing grace period. So I just try to find workarounds for the side effects of that change. We encourage users to edit their posts to add new information instead of replying again. But who will notice the new information if that no longer bumps the topic? Anything based on notifications won’t help for visitors. To receive notifications, you need to be logged in. To see a topic at the top of latest, this wasn’t necessary. So I guess I need a reply or, better, a small action post announcing the fact that there was an edit. I know staff can bump a topic, but that doesn’t help on edits by users. So maybe I need a bump option for regular users. Create reply when editing wiki would also fix the issue for wiki edits. But on wikis that are edited often, this could mean lots of replies that are only helpful as long as they are the last post. No one is interested in the 50 posts that are notifications of wiki edits 2 years ago. So I don’t think this is a feature request. I don’t have a solution. I have a problem because the solution I had was removed.

I like the idea of a small action post upon editing. But agree that will create clutter. Maybe they could be hidden behind a link to hide/show them? When you and your members edit wikis, do you add a note to explain the edit reason? That could go in the small action post.

[image] Moin: I have a problem because the solution I had was removed. Can we get a little deeper into defining the problem? To begin with, who needs to know when a given wiki post is edited? What do you expect them to do when they see that a wiki post was edited?

Every users who are interested in that topoc. And they would like to read new info. That was the main reason why I dropped all wikis in my forum.

[image] mcwumbly: Can we get a little deeper into defining the problem? To begin with, who needs to know when a given wiki post is edited? What do you expect them to do when they see that a wiki post was edited? The use case that came first to my mind was the FAQ in a forum I use. It’s a topic kept without replies exactly for the purpose that it’s bumped when someone edits it. This had numerous advantages for us. First of all, many members noticed when the topic was being edited. I therefore never worried that a user with bad intentions could cause lasting disruption there. Even if someone reached TL1 and tried to add spam there, that would have been removed by the next person visiting the forum. I was also able to add new information without having to find someone to review it first. I could trust that several community members would do this anyway when they saw the update. Probably faster than the person I would have asked for review would have seen it at all. In addition, I had not only one review from one user but from several. The responsibility was spread across many more people. Everyone helped improve the answer to the question. I was also able to encourage new members to improve the wording. Users who are less technically savvy often find it difficult to understand overly technical explanations. It helps if, once they have understood it, they improve the wording so that the next person might understand it better. Of course, new users tend to have more difficulty with the correct formatting. But that wasn’t a problem because the community could correct it afterwards as soon as they noticed it. The FAQs are pinned in the forum. I thought it was great that the date of the last edit was shown right next to it in the activity column. That way, the topic never looked outdated, but everyone could see that it was constantly being updated. Now the activity date won’t update anymore, Within the past days I noticed wiki edits came to my mind first, because we had to find solutions for that before and I found all those topics from other users having the same problem. But actually the problem also exists for other meaningful edits where users add valuable information later. Of course those are not necessarily added to the last post. But I think that this is the most likely case. Discourse even forces users to edit their last post instead of replying several times in a row. I wonder how I’d feel on a forum I joined where the software tells me to edit my post instead of replying and if I did, no one noticed. It would feel like nobody cared. I guess it’s not a place where I wanted to stay. In this forum meaningful edits for example happen when users are adding output from the serial monitor or pictures later. Conversation example new user: Hey I have problem X member: Hey we can help you better after you shared images of X new user: Can’t take images right now, will do that later when my child is in bed. and then they put the pictures into that post later I am worried we might miss these edits without the topic being bumped. Getting back to your questions: while no one needs to know when a typo was fixed everyone might be interested in valuable updates. Visitors can easily tell that the wiki is actively maintained. Members can review changes on wikis and notice edits providing updated information.

OK, gotcha. Here’s what I’m understanding: For wiki posts, signaling to the community as a whole that a post had recently been edited is helpful for two reasons: It helps distribute the responsibility of reviewing changes, to ensure their accuracy. it helps show that they are up to date For conversations, given that Discourse discourages multiple replies, people need a way to see that a significant edit was made instead. I think you’re right that bumps had been a solution to both of these needs. We will need to think about how best to address them, given the removal of the bump on edit behavior. For the conversation one, I think the answer may be to soften the discouragement of multiple replies. I think there are cases where multiple replies makes more sense than edits, and we can adjust the wording and logic of when the nudge appears to help users make the right decision. For the wiki one, I think it needs a bit more discussion, but I’ll share some hot takes. I think instead of discouraging replies on topics, we should encourage them, and design things diff with that in mind. If they were allowed and encouraged, I think I may shift expectations to say “if you make a significant edit, drop a reply on the topic briefly describing the changes and why you made them”. That’d bump the topic and make it even more transparent. We’ve talked about how replies should be displayed on wiki and documentation topics, so maybe that’d deserve another look. Another thing I could imagine doing is having some shared notification stream for edits to wikis and documentation. For example, a chat channel that gets a message posted to it automatically when there are edits made. The group that actively manages it could see those there together, and discuss in a thread of needed. Not sure how hard that’d be to wire up today with existing tools. (There’s some possible overlap with this idea and this other discussion: How automated reports could help keeping Meta tidy)

[image] mcwumbly: For the wiki one, I think it needs a bit more discussion, but I’ll share some hot takes. I think instead of discouraging replies on topics, we should encourage them I actually like that the wiki topic doesn’t have replies because whenever I click the topic, I am taken to the first and only post. While knowing there was an edit is relevant for noticing it, I don’t need to read about that over and over. I know there is a category setting for taking me to the first post when all posts are read, but I wouldn’t want all topics in that category to do that. Any chat-based solution won’t work on forums where chat is disabled :worried:

[image] Moin: I actually like that the wiki topic doesn’t have replies Yeah, I understand that. This is the kind of thing I was hinting at here: [image] mcwumbly: We’ve talked about how replies should be displayed on wiki and documentation topics, so maybe that’d deserve another look. There’s plenty to unpack there, but it could be something like hiding replies by default, for example. It’s a bigger conversation, for sure. [image] Moin: Any chat-based solution won’t work on forums where chat is disabled :worried: Fair enough. It could be enabled in a very targeted way for this use case, though. For example, we make limited use of chat on meta ourselves for things like this today already, but they aren’t widely visible and the general community participation still happens almost exclusively in forum discussions.

[image] mcwumbly: We will need to think about how best to address them, given the removal of the bump on edit behavior. Out of curiosity, what’s the rationale behind this change? If it’s mainly to prevent typos/insignificant edits bumping a topic, could it be scoped to handle just those and leave the existing behaviour as is?

New way to track edits on wiki posts?

Product Support

mcwumbly (Dave McClure) October 4, 2025, 11:46am 18

Another change on the way here:

Topic		Replies	Views
Should an edit to any wiki post bump the entire topic? Feature	51	5448	March 13, 2020
When wikis are edited, they should be bumped Feature	12	2006	March 16, 2018
Topics (with replies) bumped on title edit Bug fixed	20	1119	November 20, 2025
Returning bumping after editing last post Feature	12	739	April 16, 2026
"No bump" option when editing last post in a topic? Feature	17	2507	August 16, 2021

New way to track edits on wiki posts?

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