In a discussion titled “Renaming post will still be accessible?” under the Support category, alltiagocom asks whether renaming a topic (mistakenly referred to as a “post”) affects accessibility via old URLs. Moin clarifies that while users typically copy topic links (e.g., https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-title/391327/2), the topic ID and post number matter — not the title — so renaming won’t break links. However, moving a post to a different topic will change its context and URL. alltiagocom confirms they meant “topic” and acknowledges that the post number (/2) would still display content, but not necessarily their original message if moved. Moin adds a quote from Discourse’s documentation defining “Topic” and “Post” to clarify terminology, noting “message” usually refers to private messages or chat. alltiagocom appreciates the clarification and finds the documentation useful for their future community.
If I create a post and in the future I decide to rename it, (and I believe I can even update the url or it does it automatically, I can’t remember?), the post is still accessible if someone copied the old url to their computer, right? Because each new post has a unique ID and that is what matters?
I had to uninstall Discourse a few months ago, but I will install it again sometime next year (wanna plan as much as possible before starting to spend money again for no reason), so at the moment I can’t test what I’m asking here.
Do you mean post or topic? While there are links with the post_id, it’s unlikely users will copy that, since it’s quite hidden. Usually, users copy the link to a topic and the number the post has within the topic. The topic title in that link doesn’t matter. For example, https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-title/391327/2 works fine. But it would no longer work if my post was moved to a different topic.
Sorry, sometimes I say “post” when it’s “topic”, because a reply inside a topic is already called a “message” I believe, so calling that a post would be weird to me. And I guess we got so used to the term “post” with social media, that to me everything is a “post”.
So yes, a topic. The big “bucket” of all messages, like this very same topic we are now using to discuss this.
So, the number (ID) in the URL is what matters here. Which is good to know. Unless, as you said, your post (your message) was moved to another topic. I mean, the person would still see the second message, because of the /2 but it wouldn’t be your message.
It makes sense. I believe I saw someone once saying “message” or there’s some setting that uses that word, not related to personal messages. I can’t confirm that, but I have this baked into my brain for some reason…
No worries. And thanks for sharing the link. It can be useful even for my own community to let people know about that as well. Appreciate it!
