Category setting: new topics are wiki by default

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

To me this one is in the “very easy to build” category, also a logical thing to add to category edit preferences. I don’t know that I’ve heard the request a lot.

[precessor (Dave Higgins)]

This is just what I was looking for for my own how-to category.

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

I would like to expand on this a bit.

There is an open “theme of questions” about how do we “watch” wikis for changes, I think wiki category can cover this.

In particular, when a category is in wiki mode

• All new topics created in category have the OP as wiki

• Every edit to the OP wiki, makes the system add a system message like so:

(also link directly to the revision)

• When click on the topic from topic list (if you have no new notifications) it always takes you to the OP vs last post.

Showing edits in the stream would solve the problem of giving wikis visibility as they are edited, something that is biting me quite a bit with our current usage of wikis. If people don’t like the loud they can simply stop tracking the wiki.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

Wait what problem is being solved for here? I don’t understand the problem / pain point?

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

Wait what problem is being solved for here? I don’t understand the problem / pain point?

1. No visibility on wiki edits from front page when there is more than 1 post in the topic.
2. No way to track a wiki for changes
3. Usability of going to actual wiki from front page for pinned wikis is not ideal cause you are always transported to last post.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

I think this deserves its own feature discussion topic not being buried in some other topic…

[DeanMarkTaylor (Dean Taylor)]

@sam

No way to track a wiki for changes

Two related topics / feature requests:

Not receiving notifications for edited Wiki posts unless you are the author

This is something strange. I have made one topic a wiki post and kept it open. Then inside another browser I login with a different user id. I edited the wiki post and then I checked the forum on my admin ID. I did not received any notification whatsoever that could tel me that someone actually contributed to the post and edited it? Am I missing something here or some setting is required. Why are we not receiving notifications for wiki post edits? Is the original author of wiki post the sole pu…

Watching / Tracking / Notifications for post edits for Moderators

There doesn’t appear to be a way to get notified for post edits… (both traditional post edits and Wiki post edits). For post traditional post edits and Wiki post edits. As a user For users this topic seems to be tracking this: As an admin / moderator… Whilst moderation / approval prior to posts initially being displayed is not required, knowing something has changed so it can be reviewed is important. It’s important to be able to know when every content change occurs for moderation purp…

[jomaxro (Joshua Rosenfeld)]

Want to add my support for this feature. At my job we are currently converting a MediaWiki instance to Discourse, in hopes that we can increase its use. The wiki is our knowledge base and has become very outdated. We’re hoping that by switching to a more modern, interactive platform like Discourse we can get more staff to add and update info. Having most categories default to wiki is key as we need everyone to be able to collaborate on articles without needing a moderator to wiki the topic each time.

I’d also love to see @Tom_Newsom’s idea that users go to the first post when there are no unread replies, but defaulting new topics to wiki is critical.

[Overgrow (OG)]

Usability of going to actual wiki from front page for pinned wikis is not ideal cause you are always transported to last post.

Yes that is something that bothers me when using wiki posts as FAQ. I’d love to see both discussed features added.

[jomaxro (Joshua Rosenfeld)]

Glad to see wiki posts are getting some love!

Edits to Wikis with Replies Should Cause Timestamp Change / Post Shown as Updated

The logic would be: if the first post is a wiki and the topic is closed, with no other replies and there is an edit to the wiki post Then allow the topic to get bumped as if the edit was to the last post in the topic. Could you take this @techapj? (Essentially the topic close “Reply” is causing the intended behavior not to happen.)

Any chance to get this (the category setting feature, there was a lot of other discussion here that seems more complicated) scheduled for a release?

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

At my job we are currently converting a MediaWiki instance to Discourse

Very curious about that. How did you do that? My community still asks me to don’t use Discourse wiki posts because they’re too poor of feature compared with other wikis

[cpradio]

What are all of the issues they have with Discourse Wiki posts? I’d be very curious to learn what they are. We use them, not very often, but mainly for “living documentation” or documentation that changes on a regular basis. We’ve also used them in public topics with success, but those are rare usages.

[jomaxro (Joshua Rosenfeld)]

How did you do that?

Are you asking about the actual conversion of data or getting the “community” on board?

For the actual conversion, we did it manually . We didn’t see an existing importer, and for the size of our wiki it didn’t make sense to develop one. I sat down with 3 other employees and we copied and pasted everything over. Only took an hour or so to do, plus another hour or so to go back and fix formatting and links, plus upload attachments.

As for getting the “community” on board, as they are employees and I am in-charge of our server, they really didn’t have a choice . The main reason for the switch was that no one liked the discussion functions of MediaWiki, which meant that pages were frequently updated without prior discussion, leading sometimes to confusion, and in a few cases back-and-forth edits (from users who didn’t understand how to view history…). With Discourse, we’ve seen that staff are much more likely to add a reply to a topic than just edit, which leads to good discussion and eventually an edit. The only complaint so far about the switch is completely unrelated to wiki functionality (email stuff).

Honestly, this feature (really the lack of it) is the biggest thing preventing me from saying “Discourse is perfect for this!”.

[joebuhlig]

Per guidance and support from @jomaxro, I’ve managed to put together a PR for this. It creates the category setting, makes new topics in that category a wiki topic, and retroactively makes existing topics a wiki as well.

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/4609

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

and retroactively makes existing topics a wiki as well

Sounds a little risky… Is it clear in the UI that this will happen? What if I turn it on by accident or to try it out? When I turn it off, do all topics stay as wiki’s?

[Falco]

Is it clear in the UI that this will happen?

The UI says: “Make all existing and new topics wikis by default.”. Very clear.

When I turn it off, do all topics stay as wiki’s?

Yes, they will.

[joebuhlig]

Just so everyone is up to date, I pulled the retroactive conversion process from this per a conversation on the PR. I’ll work on a #howto for converting existing topics.

EDIT: Here’s the link to the #howto mentioned:

Convert all existing topics in category to wikis

With the ability (coming soon) to make new topics wikis by default, it will likely be met with a desire to convert the existing topics in that category to wikis as well. Here’s the process: Make sure you have a backup in place. You can do this via the UI. This is just in case something goes wrong. Get the id of the category you want to edit. ./launcher enter app rails c % Category.find_by(name: "Wiki Topics Category").id => 12 You’ll need to run SQL to update the first post of each t…