We are pleased to announce the release of a new feature within the Discourse AI plugin: Periodic Summary Reports Using AI. This Discourse AI / Discourse Automation feature is designed to provide people with automated, high-level overviews of forum activity.
Purpose and Benefits
The primary goal of AI-based periodic summaries is to distill large volumes of forum data into concise, readable reports. This tool is particularly useful for:
- Efficiency: Quickly grasp the essence of community interactions without manual analysis.
- Trend Analysis: Identify which topics are gaining traction and understand user engagement patterns.
- Content Curation: Highlight significant discussions for community review or internal strategy sessions.
- Data-Driven Insights: Equip leadership with synthesized information to support decision-making processes.
Capabilities
The AI-generated summaries provide:
- Narrative Reports: Receive structured reports that narrate the forum’s activities, including popular topics, user engagement, and emerging trends.
- Customizable Periods: Generate summaries for any chosen time frame, from daily updates to monthly reviews.
- Selective Focus: Tailor reports to concentrate on particular categories, tags, or user groups within the community.
Configuration Flexibility
Understanding that community needs vary, the feature offers multiple configuration options:
- Delivery Method: Choose to publish summaries to a public topic or send them through private messages or emails (to execs for example).
- Content Filters: Include or exclude specific categories or tags to match the report’s focus with your community’s structure.
- LLM flexibility: We support multiple LLMs for the report (Claude / Gemini / GPT-4) however you need to be very mindful that this is a 1 shot report and works best with very large context LLMs. Specifically GPT-4 Turbo produces the best results today.
Setting Up Your Periodic Summaries
Configuring periodic summary reports is straightforward:
- Access Automation: In the admin panel, navigate to the Discourse Automation section.
- Create a New Report: Select the “Periodic Summary Reports Using AI” script from the available options.
- Customize Settings: Complete the setup by specifying the sender, AI model, desired time frame, and any content filters.
- Determine Frequency: Set the automation frequency to daily, weekly, or monthly as needed.
- Activate: Enable the automation to start receiving AI-generated reports.
Example report from meta:
We have meta configured to generate daily reports for trust level 3 users in the lounge category. Once a day a recap is posted:
Given the custom instructions: (note: custom instructions are configurable)
Generate a Daily summary of meta.discourse.org
- List key stats like top users and counts of posts / topics
- List 20 or so interesting topics raised and discussed in the past day
- List a summary of activity by the @team group linking to topics they made inline.
- Sourcing: ALWAYS Back statements with links to forum discussions.
- Markdown Usage: Enhance readability with **bold**, *italic*, and > quotes and [links](http://...).
- Linking: Use `https://meta.discourse.org/t/-/TOPIC_ID/POST_NUMBER` for direct references.
- User Mentions: Reference users with @USERNAME
- Add many topic links: strive to link to at least 40 topics in the report. Topic Id is meaningless to end users if you need to throw in a link use [ref](...) or better still just embed it into the [sentence](...)
- Categories and tags: use the format #TAG and #CATEGORY to denote tags and categories
- When providing a topic summary, do so in paragraph form eg:
@user discovered there was an [issue](https://meta.discourse.org) with XYZ and @user2 suggested [suggestion](https://meta...)
- Report should only have **3 sections**
- Key Stats
- Interesting Topics
- Activity by the @team Group
Various options:
Yesterdays report was:
Yesterday's report
## Key Stats
- New posts: 81
- New topics: 9
- Top users by likes and posts: @system (58 likes, 14 posts), @JammyDodger (12 likes, 6 posts), @twofoursixeight (8 likes, 2 posts)
- Top users in the @team group: @JammyDodger (12 likes, 6 posts), @techAPJ (6 likes, 2 posts), @sam (4 likes, 1 post), @Falco (0 likes, 1 post)
## Interesting Topics
- The [2023: The Year in Review](https://meta.discourse.org/t/2023-the-year-in-review/290184) topic, initiated by @system, provided a comprehensive look at the most active users and the most read topics across various categories such as #support, #feature, and #ux.
- A discussion on the [But I didn't click Answer, I clicked Edit](https://meta.discourse.org/t/but-i-didnt-click-answer-i-clicked-edit/290155) topic highlighted a UX issue with the Post Voting plugin, which was addressed by @JammyDodger.
- @techAPJ from the @team group contributed to the [Discussion Forum Schema improvements](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discussion-forum-schema-improvements/287347) topic, discussing the implementation of structured data for better SEO.
- Users discussed the creation of a [Custom badge for trust level 0](https://meta.discourse.org/t/custom-badge-for-trust-level-0/290171) and how to manage badge assignments as trust levels change.
- The [Bug: Unable to disable "Illustrate Post" in AI post options](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-unable-to-disable-illustrate-post-in-ai-post-options/290154) topic raised concerns about the inability to disable a feature dependent on Stable Diffusion, which @sam from the @team group acknowledged and promised a fix.
- The [Discourse Yearly Review](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-yearly-review/105713) plugin faced some issues with automatic generation and language settings, prompting a discussion on how to manually trigger the review.
- A user inquired about migrating from [Vanilla Forums 2023 to Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrate-vanilla-forums-2023-to-discourse/290180), and @Moin provided a helpful link to an existing guide.
- The [FKB Pro - Social theme](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fkb-pro-social-theme/234323) topic saw users discussing how to manage topic bumps and create a social site-like experience with Discourse.
- Users reported issues with upgrading Discourse in the [Failed to upgrade 3.1.0 Beta7 to 3.2.0 Beta3](https://meta.discourse.org/t/failed-to-upgrade-3-1-0-beta7-to-3-2-0-beta3-as-of-12-31-2023/290140) and [Another discourse offline "bootstrap failed with exit code 5"](https://meta.discourse.org/t/another-discourse-offline-bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-5/290104) topics.
- The [Fireworks Component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fireworks-component-fireworks/174598) topic discussed the implementation of a festive feature, with users sharing their experiences and troubleshooting tips.
## Activity by the @team Group
- @JammyDodger actively participated in discussions, providing insights on the Post Voting plugin and the Discourse Yearly Review plugin.
- @techAPJ addressed concerns regarding structured data for SEO in the [Discussion Forum Schema improvements](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discussion-forum-schema-improvements/287347) topic.
- @sam acknowledged a bug related to the AI post options and promised a fix in the [Bug: Unable to disable "Illustrate Post" in AI post options](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-unable-to-disable-illustrate-post-in-ai-post-options/290154) topic.
- @Falco was mentioned in relation to the AI post options issue, indicating a collaborative effort within the team to resolve it.