What are best practices for archiving topics? I’ve not used this feature before, and don’t fully understand what happens when you archive something and when we should use it. Appreciate any explanation/links 
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We don’t use archive on our instance (except our staging instance where we like to try and break things), so I can’t really say when to use each as we don’t focus on archive at all in our live site.
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A lot depends on your edit time window and much work your Mods feel like doing.
eg. if you have a very long edit time window, you may want to archive an older discussion so posts don’t get edited into something not desirable.
We’ve found that having a shorter edit time window (many have complained that it’s too short) and auto-closing topics that gone dormant works well.
It’s a subtle distinction but
Close only prevents new replies.
and
Archive freezes a topic in carbonite so nothing about it can ever change. Ever.
Refer to this handy diagram:
The idea is that archived topics would eventually be moved out or deleted. Archiving a topic means it has one foot in the grave.
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My main set of categories are configured with auto-close. I don’t plan to ever archive in those categories.
I have an Admin category for Administrative Announcements. Everyone can read, but only Staff can create and reply. This category is not configured for auto-close, but I archive topics when they are no longer applicable.
Thanks everyone - and esp @codinghorror for the amusing visual. I think I actually understand pretty clearly what happens when you archive a topic, but I am still wrapping my head around why we would use archiving. Looks like we just won’t use it.
I will reflect on auto-closing of topics as well - that’s an interesting thought. Thanks @kensims. One of the issues we are running into is that we go back and close topics that are old, because the discussions have run their course. But that then bumps them up in lists and generates notifications which is unfortunate, and causes some complaints because people think they should be paying attention to them.
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This was fixed… It should only notify the OP and it definitely no longer bumps the topic…
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OP means Original Poster?
That would be good. Thanks for clarifying. What about moderators? Do moderators get notified?
OP = Original Poster
Well they likely closed it… so no they don’t. If they were watching the category/topic, it does appear under the Unread tab (may not be true for auto-close), but nothing in the notifications area.
Ah - so we have a category that we require everyone to watch. When a topic is closed in that category, does everyone get notified?
In the Unread tab, yes, an actual Notification in the top right - no.
Again, may not apply for auto-close, but it seems to apply for a moderator closing a topic (based on the experience I have at Sitepoint and here at Meta)
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Is there a difference in search engine visibility for Archived topics? I for one would like to see archived topics be not-indexed by Google and co., and be invisible or deprioritized in the in-Discourse search. This for many of the reasons stated here, but still leaving the topic around for people who have the link or otherwise know where it is…
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I think that is a very good idea and would be another important point of distinction between closed. @techapj can you add this to your list?
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I’m not sure that “archived = hidden” is a good line to draw. Alternatively, you could do something crazy like automatically submitting archived topics to www.archive.org.
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I always understood an archive to be a place of public record, to be referenced when required. So I assumed the purpose of archiving a topic was to ensure a particularly-important topic remained preserved and unchanged - like locking cells in a spreadsheet to prevent accidental changes.
This sounds more like bundling up old business records, ready to throw them out when they get beyond the seven-year limit (or whatever the local legal requirement is). I’m not sure quite what I’d call that, but it wouldn’t be archiving.
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Yeah, I don’t like that idea either. They can unlist if they want it hidden from Search Engines, why should Archived be removed?
Archived simply means you want to store it in its original state, you don’t want it modified. It would be similar to a static page which are still visible to search engines.
There is already a solution for this, they can unlist it and archive it. Done. Bam. Easy. Archive does not equal invisible.
With the change proposed, it is impossible for me to save a discussion in its current state without making it invisible/impossible to find. That’s frustrating.
Definition of archive:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/archive
Keywords: “Long term storage”
What if all of the important documents from our history were archived in the way you’ve outlined? They would be nearly impossible to find by new users because they don’t have a link to it. Hardly the best use of long term storage, yes?
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So it seems we do actually have a few archived topics (over 20 pages worth). So the impact on us is real (just an FYI).
Yes that is an even better idea. @techapj make it so unlisting a topic removes it from Google search results by adding the no index header.
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Ce post a été mis à jour et reposté ici :
Post original ci-dessous
J’essayais de comprendre la différence entre « archiver » un sujet et le « fermer ». J’ai parcouru le code et pris quelques notes que je souhaite partager.
Je tiens simplement à souligner et à réitérer que le post de @codinghorror ici illustre très bien cette fonctionnalité :
Alors, comment se comparent « l’archivage » et la « fermeture » d’un sujet ?
Commun aux deux
- Affiche une icône de « cadenas » à côté du sujet dans les listes.
- Il est possible d’afficher deux icônes de cadenas si le sujet est à la fois fermé et archivé : Close and Archive a Topic
- Désactive la réponse au sujet.
- Désactive les votes.
- Désactive le bouton « Inviter » en bas du sujet.
- Fermer ou archiver un sujet ne modifie pas sa date de dernière activité.
Spécifique aux sujets archivés
- Désactive la capacité des utilisateurs de supprimer un post.
- Désactive les « j’aime ».
Désactive l’affichage dans la page « toutes les catégories » « récent » (généralement la page d’accueil pour les utilisateurs connectés).- Désactive l’affichage du sujet sur la page
/top. - Désactive l’inclusion dans les e-mails de résumé.
- Désactive l’affichage du sujet dans la liste des sujets « aléatoires » en bas de la page du sujet.
- Continue à permettre le signalement du sujet ou des posts.
- Continue à permettre les favoris.
- Continue à être affiché dans la liste
Non lus(c’est-à-dire que vous voyez le post marquant le sujet comme archivé, c’est intentionnel).
Où sont-ils ?
- Vous pouvez voir les sujets archivés via le paramètre de chaîne de requête
status=archived: Discourse Meta - Vous pouvez toujours voir les sujets archivés en naviguant vers une catégorie spécifique.
L’avenir
J’ai également noté ce commentaire, qui indique que la signification finale de l’archivage pourrait changer :
Une discussion supplémentaire a lieu dans ce sujet :
How should category archiving work?
Si vous repérez une erreur ou si quelque chose a changé, veuillez répondre à ce post — je le mettrai à jour.
Peut-être que cela pourrait être le début d’un post de spécification pour les sujets archivés ?
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My 2 cents for added features:
- archived topics should also behave like unlisted topics
- should be excluded from search by default
- should not be crawled by bots.
- should remain available to search with a special search operator (include:archived or something?)
- should remain available to those with a link
In other words, they should be put in a state where they are out of the way enough you don’t have to delete them.
(or should those be just features of ‘unlisted’ and a shortcut could exist to “archive and unlist”?)
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