The discussion revolves around the idea of a “Topic of the Week” feature, where community members can nominate and vote for the best topics. Sara_Noel describes a similar feature from her previous experience with vb, where members could nominate topics, and the most nominated topic would receive a badge.
codinghorror suggests using the /top feature, which is 95% similar to Sara_Noel’s idea. However, Sara_Noel expresses concerns that the /top feature may not accurately reflect the most useful or important topics, as her ongoing thread is not included in the top list despite being popular and well-received.
codinghorror explains that the /top feature uses various criteria such as likes, bookmarks, reads, and incoming/outgoing links. Sara_Noel asks for suggestions on how to build a knowledge base with Discourse, considering that her forum is still growing.
jomaxro provides helpful links to discussions on excluding categories from the /top view, topic rating plugins, and how the /top list is calculated. Sara_Noel appreciates the help and acknowledges the importance of searching for existing solutions before posting.
I used to have a feature on vb that was topic of the week. Members could nominate their favorite topic each week and then a tally/poll would show the “votes/nominations” and which topic was nominated the most by peers ie. 1st, 2nd, and so on. I liked this because new readers could quickly read the best topics each week that weren’t based on post reply count or views. If I remember correctly, the original poster that created the best topic of the week received a badge. It was a separate forum category and each week it would show each member’s nomination and tally them up and show the amount of nominations a thread topic received.
Any thoughts on the usefulness or uselessness of this? Is this too similar to upvotes/downvotes? Not entirely sure if there is something already like this and I missed it. Learning daily. Just today I realized the welcome pm still had a discourse link. I never saw it before. oops.
Likes, bookmarks, number of reads, duration of reads, number of incoming links to the topic, number of outgoing links to the topic, number of replies to the topic, etc.
The reason I ask is because I have an ongoing thread that is popular/important/great reference and let’s say one of the best to read, but isn’t in the Top. In fact, there are welcome posts in Top. If I were to poll my readers to vote on which post was most useful,this topic would be in the top 5. My forum is in its infancy. I’m only at 3000 posts and under 50 members, but full participation and I see no issue with continued growth. So moving forward, without the use of numerous pins–not saying I liked that, just saying I can’t do that, (but able to wiki-post, but not full wiki, so one would have to search the wiki to find something they can’t know ahead of time is best thread material), and knowing that some important posts aren’t in Top, is there anything I’m missing to help readers in getting the best of the best posts in a neat and tidy ease of reference as the site grows?
I’m asking how do I best build a knowledge base with Discourse.
Okay, so it’s post creation date and not “high activity” date? I guess moving forward, I will tag, too.
It would be nice if Top could exclude categories. Can it? That would help weed out the more general chat posts. Is there a thread/topic rating plugin? That would help, too.
I did see the ratings one (was unsure because of the product/services wording), but did not search for the other two links you provided. Thank you for your patience and time! It’s appreciated. I was posting conversationally, not thoughtfully! I will be mindful in the future.