How to force a topic to be edited by the user

[nickdb (Nick)]

Hi, we have members posting topics that are either incomplete, poor or AI generated. We want to be able to flag these and send it back to the creator, with notes, to edit the post so it conforms to guidelines. I just can’t seem to find a way to flag this. Assistance appreciated.

(hosted site)

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

Maybe convert them to a PM with a reply about what’s needed to make it be moved back to a topic.

[putty]

You could require approval for certain groups until they prove themselves. Perhaps elevating their trust level or adding them to an “approved” group.

Discourse recently added the ability to designate groups that do/not need approval:

More flexible category-level topic and reply approvals

We’ve made it easier to setup category approval requirements which control who needs to get staff approval before their topic and / or reply can be posted. By making this system more flexible, we hope to reduce any unnecessary work for your community team while keeping desired safeguards in place. Previously, this was an all-or-nothing setting — you had to require approval for everyone or no one. Now, you can also require approval for new topics or new replies for: Everyone except users in ce…

[fzngagan (Faizaan Gagan)]

Hi @nickdb,
You can simply select the Something Else option while flagging the post. When acting on the flag, you can select Hide Post which notifies the user, asking them to edit their post. The thing is, this doesn’t allow you to add your custom message to the post. I think the best way, as described in this thread, would be to proactively require approval before the topics land on the forum, as explained by @putty.

[nickdb (Nick)]

The overhead for requiring approvals is far to high, even for new users and frankly the issue is not restricted to new users.

Converting to messages is also very cumbersome.

This cannot be a unique problem. Groups is impractical for large forums and small mod teams.

All we need is a “request edit” option for flags that can send a generic or custom message and hides the topic, ideally allowing them to resubmit after an edit.

Your AI composer is also part of the issue. It creates long winded over structured topics. The process for reigning that in is also cumbersome needing custom agents and not being able to tune existing ones.

[putty]

@nickdb

All we need is a “request edit” option for flags that can send a generic or custom message and hides the topic, ideally allowing them to resubmit after an edit.

You can create custom flags that accomplish most of what you’re looking for:

You can find this at:
yourURL/admin/config/flags/new

The simple solution is that the description states to resubmit this content, but with ABC changes. You could have a single catch-all flag or one for each scenario you mentioned. Editing their existing topic will require more touches/automations.

[nickdb (Nick)]

@putty

/admin/config/flags/new

On its own this seems suitable, only issue is it does not seem possible to restrict a custom flag to a group (staff, mods etc). It really isn’t something we would want open to the whole user base.

[putty]

It may be worth tinkering with CSS to hide it for everyone else? It may result in an awkward space in the module, but it gets you like 99% of the way there.

The only other thing I can think of is training an AI agent to automatically flag them, similar to how the spam bot operates.

[Lilly (Lillian)]

make the custom flag, for example if you call it the edit post flag

then in css of theme component:

.flag-action-type.custom_edit_post_flag {
    display: none;
}

.staff .flag-action-type.custom_edit_post_flag {
    display: block;
}

[putty]

@putty

The only other thing I can think of is training an AI agent to automatically flag them, similar to how the spam bot operates.

Expanding on this, if you have AI tools at your disposal it may be worth trying to lighten the load that way.

Coincidentally, I’m watching the VOD of AI for Enterprise video right now, and @Falco showed how to automate some moderation.

[nickdb (Nick)]

Right now on a technical forum AI is part of the problem.

The helper agents are creating verbose posts, before the content that is pulled from gpt and co.

Training an agent to prevent the mistakes of other agents is somewhat ironic.

5 stars to the spam bot but the rest is making it harder to run a forum, not better.