# Plugin: Manually curated topic summaries

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-manually-curated-topic-summaries/39477
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** rfc, spec
**Created:** [February 12, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-manually-curated-topic-summaries/39477 "2016-02-12T14:42:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1

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### Author: ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-manually-curated-topic-summaries/39477/1 "2016-02-12T14:42:01Z")

</div>

**Related topics:**

- [Plugin Idea: Thread Updates](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-idea-thread-updates/7973)
- [Admin/mod ability to insert a post wherever](https://meta.discourse.org/t/admin-mod-ability-to-insert-a-post-wherever/39043)
- [Summarize this Topic → Write a Summary for this Topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/summarize-this-topic-write-a-summary-for-this-topic/25460)

**Example use case:**

> [@Help us test our new post rendering engine!](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-us-test-our-new-post-rendering-engine/39221/55):
>
> I’m also going to go through this topic now and delete the posts that have been solved just to keep it clean.

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/1/1/117fcd6dfa317c5f909c7315bb79fb004bce9b3e.png)

### Problem statement

Some topics, like a call-for-bug-reports or a new Howto, will receive a lot of replies that go stale shortly thereafter because the appropriate fixes/edits were applied as a response. When closing or marking as solved doesn’t make sense, **the best solution to date is to delete these replies**.

The act of deleting genuinely helpful replies really bothers me. A human “thank you” covers it pretty well, but if Discourse could do a better job as a record-keeper I think it should, and the core functionality for this appears to be in place already.

### How manual summaries would work

1. Click moderator wrench
2. Click select posts and select the ones you want to show in the summary
3. Click “Create Summary” (mockup below)

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/a/4/a468340896f69615f4f7f88a24009923dc21811c.png)

This forces a summarised view of this topic _by default_. You get pretty much the exact same effect as you get from deleting posts, except the “public record” of helpful replies is maintained.

To view all replies, you simply click the “Show all posts” button.

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/a/b/ab2bd51f19a7bfa7c4add7c74bb5884cfc57306e.png)

#### Settings parameters

- Feature is only accessible to TL2 and above.
- Enabled per-category

p.s. This is a fairly legit core feature, but I think it makes just as much sense as a plugin since it adds more admin panel options & moderator UX that most admins/mods shouldn’t have to concern themselves with.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-manually-curated-topic-summaries/39477)._