Hey all,
Is it possible to set up multiple Topic Timers – for example: publish, and then a separate one to auto-close the thread. I have a direct need for this…it’s not a deal breaker for it not to exist…just automation is amazing.
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Is this what you’re after?
Auto-closing is already core.
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Not possible right now as we only allow one public topic timer (publish, closing, opening) per topic. As a workaround now, you could set a publish topic timer and add a reminder for yourself to close the topic.
Could you build on your use case a little as to why you have a need for multiple topic timers? Multiple topic timers is not impossible but tricky to deal with as we now have to make sure that there isn’t any overlap with the time range.
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I pretty much wanted a publish timer and a timer to close the topic automatically…not much more to it.
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Here’s my use case for two topic timers on the same topic.
In my community, we have a recurring weekly topic called Wow Us Wednesday. It’s a 24 hour period for members to do self-promotion as we’ve found they need a time and place to vent their promotional steam.
We use the existing topic timer functionality to automatically close the topic 24 hours after being published – mostly so promotion stays contained to a specific weekly time frame and doesn’t keep bubbling back up to the top all the time.
However, using the auto close topic timer prohibits me from using the schedule publishing topic timer – and I want to use both.
I would prefer to schedule 4-8 weekly Wow Us Wednesday topics all at once from an efficiency perspective. Right now, I can’t use the schedule publishing topic timer as my one topic timer because, if I miss my window to manually close the topic 24 hours after it’s published, members can do self-promotion beyond our 24 hour concentrated time frame.
Since our Wow Us Wednesday takes place from 12:00 a.m. PDT - 11:59 p.m. PDT and I’m two hours ahead in CDT, I’d have to wake up at 2:00 a.m. to manually close the topic – something I’m not keen to do. That says nothing of my changed responsibilities if I’m on vacation, sick, or can’t find another admin in a different time zone to manually close the topic.
Having two topic timers on the same topic wouldn’t be revolutionary for me. But it would sure make my scheduling and team coordination easier, and I imagine hundreds of other Discourse users would say the same.
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Interesting use case.
I think there is totally merit for supporting “delay published, auto closing” topics. I can see use cases where it is useful.
A current workaround is to post it to a category with auto-close topic hours set, would that not work?
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I appreciate the workaround suggestion, Sam. I could see it working for some Discourse users … the issue is it doesn’t work for mine.
The self-promotion threads are published to a category called “Anything Goes” and the nature of the category is to have wide-ranging conversations. The only forum threads in the category I’d want to auto-close are the self-promotion focused ones I publish. The rest are published by community members and I want to leave replies open indefinitely.
Granted, I could create a new category specifically for these weekly self-promotion posts. But we’re wary of the communication and UX tradeoffs when we create new categories and try to do it as infrequently as possible.
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How about a “wow us Wednesday” subcategory of “anything goes”?
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Stephen, we played with the idea of having a “Wow Us Wednesday” sub-category of the “Anything Goes” master category. However, despite the efficiency gain of being able to have a dedicated sub-category with the ability to auto-close all topics in it after 24 hours, we weren’t willing to make the trade off in UX.
For example, having a sub-category filter in the Anything Goes category for the Wow Us Wednesday sub-category and seeing the standalone Wow Us Wednesday sub-category on the the Categories view page (e.g., https://yourforum.com/categories) draws too much attention to the fact that we have a dedicated sub-category for self-promotion.
Our goal is to limit the visibility of self-promotion for the 144 out of the 168 hours each week where we’re not actively doing self-promotion.
I’m grateful for the suggestion. I’ll just wait until @sam or someone else on the Discourse Team develops the “delay published, auto closing” feature Sam mentioned he’d like to see.
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Did you experiment with hiding that particular subcategory from /categories using css?
I have another use case for publish-then-close: I am running a course, where we are posting announcements inviting input for each course activity, and afterwards closing the announcement after the corresponding activity (lecture or Q&A) is over. An auto-close category wouldn’t quite work because different activities have different expiration.
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Hi, tried to setup multiple timers for recurring events. Allowing 2 - 3 would be useful!
- Delayed Publish
- Delete All Replies after 7 days
- Auto Bump weekly, or bi-weekly, before the event recurs.
Thanks for considering. Also using new automation plugin to:
Auto-Pin topic the day before next occurrence. Hoping to eventually set this as recurring weekly / bi-weekly / monthly rather than on a specific day. ← This how we’ve configured our Event plugin.
Perhaps there could be more interplay between topic timers and the automation plugin in the future. Cheers.
Another topic timer option that could be useful:
- Remove all emoticons from topic.
This is because users like to use emoticons to interact with a topic when they agree / disagree, etc.
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That belongs in the event plugin IMO.
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Mi caso de uso para esto es para hilos de juegos.
Quiero lanzar el hilo BLOQUEADO a medianoche porque la gente empezará a buscarlo en nuestro blog de eventos de una semana. Esto lo puedo hacer.
Quiero configurarlo para que se desbloquee a las 9 a.m. cuando comience el juego. La única forma en que puedo hacer esto es quedarme despierto después de la medianoche para configurar otro temporizador o hacerlo manualmente a las 9 a.m.
Otro caso de uso son los hilos de sorteos. Me encantaría enviar los tiempos de inicio y cierre al mismo tiempo en lugar de esperar a que se inicie para establecer la hora de finalización.
ME ENCANTARÍA configurar dos temporizadores. Puedo ver que esto se vuelve un poco complicado si entran en conflicto, pero tal vez limitar los casos de uso o incluir algunas comprobaciones y balances.
¡Gracias!
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¿Sería útil dividir esto en una RFE específica para publicaciones programadas que se cierran automáticamente?
La solución alternativa de tener una categoría de cierre automático tiene sentido en general, pero quiero hacer esto para un conjunto específico de conversaciones como parte de una discusión estructurada durante los próximos meses, y configurar una categoría separada parece excesivo para eso.
¿Por qué no simplemente hacerlo como una subcategoría separada? Eso no está tan mal, y puedes configurarlo para que tus usuarios probablemente ni siquiera lo noten.
Mis usuarios son muy observadores. 
Muchos tienen filtros configurados para ordenar su correo de notificaciones y, por lo tanto, son sensibles a los cambios de categoría.
Tampoco estoy seguro de cómo funcionan la configuración de notificaciones para las subcategorías… si creo una, ¿heredará de la principal para los usuarios existentes o tendrán que suscribirse por separado?
¡¡¡Uf!!! ¡Necesitas sacarlos del modo de lista de correo y pasarlos a la interfaz de usuario de Discourse! No es fácil, lo sé por experiencia real. Buena suerte.
Las etiquetas del asunto del correo electrónico incluirán el nombre de la categoría principal, pero dependerá de cómo hayan configurado sus filtros (particularmente si incluyen ambos corchetes).
Es un poco complejo: hay una funcionalidad de herencia al configurar los valores predeterminados de notificación, pero no la he tocado. Definitivamente puedes configurarlos de forma independiente si lo deseas.