# Faq category cleanup! 🧹
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566
**Category:** Site feedback
**Created:** [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/1 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
We are cleaning up our #howto:faq category 🎊
Over the years we have accumulated a lot of changes to Discourse that are not properly reflected in #howto:faq making it hard for people to reason and learn about Discourse features.
### What is happening?
- All the topics in #howto:faq will have **all replies** deleted after 30 days. This will be a rule from now onwards. If people want to discuss faqs they will be strongly encoraged to open dedicated topics, otherwise like tears in the rain, your clarifications may be lost.
- All the topics in #howto:faq are marked as wiki. Meaning anyone can edit them and make them better.
- Sam (me) is watching all these topics, so edits on faq will, _at least_, go to me.
- We will introduce a silver badge for `docs team` (name to be determined ™) for people who edit N (N will be determined in 30 days) #howto:faq topics
- We will introduce a gold, title worthy, badge for `docs team` members who have gone above and beyond improving stuff
- In some rare cases there may be discussion that needs to be preserved, Discourse co-workers will work through the list to ensure nothing critical gets lost.
### What you can do?
- Search, for `#faq order:views` you can find a reasonable work list, that places top viewed topics on the top. It probably makes sense in that order.
- If we have well established tags on #howto:faq topics that are missing them … add them.
- Please don’t feel terrible your reply is being automatically deleted from #howto:faq topics, this is how it will work from now on. Discuss elsewhere.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2020, 4:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/2 "2020-04-20T04:12:53Z")
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### Author:  [@schleifer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schleifer)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/3 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> We will introduce a silver badge for `docs team` (name to be determined ™) for people who edit N (N will be determined in 30 days) #howto:faq topics
Gnomes
> **[Wikipedia:WikiGnome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiGnome)**
>
> A WikiGnome is a wiki user who makes useful incremental edits without clamoring for attention. WikiGnomes work behind the scenes of a wiki, tying up little loose ends and making things run more smoothly. WikiGnomes often fix spelling errors, repair broken links, improve formatting, and add missing categories to articles. Typical behaviors include ticking the "This is a minor edit" box before saving any edit, and not providing an edit summary. The WikiGnome is the original example of WikiFaun...
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### Author:  [@neounix](https://meta.discourse.org/u/neounix)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/4 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
Good idea @sam
At the moment, this new rule looks like it impacts 72 topics, looking at the meta data. Is that right?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/5 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
Sounds about right. I already cleaned up 4-5 so less than 70 as of this second.
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### Author:  [@maiki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/maiki)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/6 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> Please don’t feel terrible your reply is being automatically deleted from #howto:faq topics, this is how it will work from now on. Discuss elsewhere.
I propose guidance on this point. _I_ love to reply-as-linked-topic, but I’ve found others don’t _grok_ it, so maybe a meta-howto on discussing howtos, or each howto could, as a convention, mention how it ought to be discussed. _To give the noobs a fighting change._
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/7 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
> [@maiki](#):
>
> To give the noobs a fighting change.
I personally find the mark of cain to be a very big detractor:
Even if they can not find the “reply as new topic” they can still hyperlink to it in a new topic.
That said:
[https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-definition-for-faq/25](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-definition-for-faq/25)
is a wiki … go forth and make it awesome.
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### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/8 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> All the topics in #howto:faq are marked as wiki. Meaning anyone can edit them and make them better.
I can’t seem to edit [this](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deep-linking-to-headings-anchors/47552) topic, for example. What am I missing?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/9 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
It is not wiki … I just made it wiki
I think I did not wiki the howto topics I moved to the faq category today … will get it sorted.
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### Author:  [@hellekin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/hellekin)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/10 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
@sam, I think [Why GNU License?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-gnu-license/2531) is good to go.
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### Author:  [@hellekin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/hellekin)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/11 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
This topic ([https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-difference-between-admins-and-mods/8643](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-difference-between-admins-and-mods/8643)) requires a bit of automation to extract Moderator / Admin features. Maybe it does not have to be exhaustive, but it would be useful if someone from the team would point to the right place(s) to look at in the source code.
The topic might be reformulated as a question, e.g., “What is the difference between Leader, Moderator, and Admin?”.
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### Author:  [@SidV](https://meta.discourse.org/u/SidV)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/13 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
Sam, a doubt about this cleanup … every time that a user open a new topic, do you have to set the auto-delete replies setting? Or there is a category setting to do that automatically ?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/faq-category-cleanup/148566/14 "2020-05-18T15:00:00Z")
No category levels setting at the moment