Possible to unlist old topics in bulk?

Support
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1

I spent some time searching this site looking for an answer this question, but I’ve only seen where other people have asked for the feature here and here without any real resolution to unlisting old topics in bulk.

My organization opens various annual categories for our members throughout year that get hundreds of replies (if not thousands), so it would really, really be beneficial to us if Discourse provided this feature.

Is there a workaround for this, or even a timeline as to when the next Discourse update will include an option for bulk unlisting of topics?

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2

It’s already there.

  1. Click on a tag or category to get a topic list
  2. Click the bullet-list icon to the left of the word “Topic” in the list header.
  3. Check the topics you want.
  4. Click the :wrench: button that appears in the upper right.
  5. Click Unlist Topics.
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3

Thanks, @downey! Just followed your outlined steps, however, after clicking all 718 topics, I’m now getting an error message after clicking “Unlist Topics” – and many of my topics (when I reopen the category in another tab) are not actually unlisted.

Any insight on that?

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4

Any errors in /admin/logs or Chrome Debug tools F12?

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From the /admin/error logs:

Capture2.JPG1904×82 34.2 KB

And from Chrome Debug/F12:

Capture.JPG554×980 78.8 KB

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For the F12, you need to click on the Console tab, as what you took a screenshot of is simply the HTML source that built the page, not what errors may have been reported.

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Thanks for clarifying, @cpradio. Here’s what I pulled from the Console tab:

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I’m not sure if this will work for 718 topics at once; you might try smaller batches of 20-50 first.

I also strongly suggest you set auto-close on that category so all those topics will auto-close after (x) days or (x) days after the last activity. Then this will be basically automatic. That can be done via the category edit dialog.

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9

Thanks for that tip, @codinghorror. We’d like to keep the category (it is in use for several months a year and remains linked in various places so we’re hesitant to outright close it and lose the URL), but we would like to unlist old topics. However, for now I’ll try unlisting in batches.

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I’m not proposing that you remove the category – I’m proposing that you set the “auto-close” setting on the category so every newly created topic in that category automatically closes after a certain interval of time.

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If we “close” a topic, is that the same as unlisting it – or does it delete?

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A closed topic won’t be shown a number of places, so it gets more suppressed. Not the same as unlisting, though.

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A closed topic does not allow new replies. Users can still edit their own posts, and users can like posts, but no non-staff replies are allowed.

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14

More importantly to his implicit request, closed stuff won’t get mailed out in the digest. I also believe @techapj added a field that can suppress entire categories from the digest if needed?

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15

Yes, the setting name is digest suppress categories.

Screen Shot 2016-05-05 at 20.09.00.png1772×382 25.7 KB

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Once “Unlisted”, it would be nice to have a bulk “Re-list” button (in the future).

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Not following, if you use the wrench on the topic as an admin you can “unlist” topics and then “re-list” if needed.

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Re-listing is now be done one by one. Useful once many topics are unlisted and many will need to be re-listed again after e.g. proofreading.

It was relevant during the bulk import stage in our case, bulk re-listing should be helping posting back unlisted threads and topics quicker.

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Ahh a much much better workflow would be to create a staff only category for the topics while proofing and then shift them out of said category once they are ready.

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