Weekly Summary of AI topics

Site feedback Forum summaries
68

Overview

This week’s AI conversations on Meta centered on AI-powered content management, UI refinements, and under-the-hood fixes. Key themes included:

  1. AI-driven topic splitting: The launch of Using forum researcher to help organize and split large topics (Community, ai) sparked side-by-side comparisons of manual vs AI-assisted workflows, with JammyDodger sharing detailed manual-splitting advice.
  2. Enhanced AI persona visibility: Discussions in Create a more noticeable link for AI persona (Support, ai) explored placing a larger chatbot icon in the UI and even swapping out custom images for greater prominence.
  3. Homepage transformation: The idea to turn the landing page into an AI bot interface was prototyped in How to set the home page to be an AI bot? ex: ask.discourse.com (Support, ai), with Lilly suggesting group-invite automations.
  4. Artifact data-passing: In How do I pass data to an artifact? (Feature, ai-artifacts), sam introduced a postMessage-based API fix, later merged as a pull request.
  5. Schema and payload fixes: A critical bug in JSON parsing was resolved in Summarize Topic with AI loads indefinitely, Invalid JSON Payload Received? (Bug, ai) via tweaks to the Gemini schema handler.
  6. UX positioning tweaks: Adjustments to avoid the floating AI Docs button overlapping native controls were outlined in Misplaced AI Docs Overlay button (UX, accessibility, ai).
  7. Cost considerations: Warnings about expensive model calls surfaced in Problems manually configuring perplexity sonar deep research (Dev, ai), noting that a single reply could cost upwards of $0.70.
  8. Extended topic-splitting workflows: Follow-up posts in Using forum researcher to help organize and split large topics tested the tool on other “kitchen sink” threads.
  9. Additional persona enhancements: Community members iterated on Lilly’s approach in Create a more noticeable link for AI persona, building custom components via the Discourse Custom Components plugin.
  10. Backend patch tracking: Further fixes were tracked through PR updates in How do I pass data to an artifact? and margin-tweaks in Misplaced AI Docs Overlay button.

Interesting Topics

  • Using forum researcher to help organize and split large topics (topic 366188, Community, ai)
    sam demoed a disabled-by-default AI persona for deep research, showcasing automated outlines for the Kanban Board topic.

  • Create a more noticeable link for AI persona (topic 365884, Support, ai)
    Angela_MRS asked how to enlarge the chatbot icon, and Lilly shared sidebar and menu-drop-down hacks.

  • Misplaced AI Docs Overlay button (topic 366138, UX, accessibility, ai)
    SvenPuschmann reported the floating AI Docs button obstructing iOS controls, with pmusaraj suggesting simple CSS margin fixes.

  • How do I pass data to an artifact? (topic 350791, Feature, ai-artifacts)
    A sandboxing-necessary postMessage solution was implemented by sam, tracked in PR #1346.

  • Summarize Topic with AI loads indefinitely, Invalid JSON Payload Received? (topic 365587, Bug, ai)
    Roman_Rizzi confirmed that adjusting the JSON schema format in PR #1340 resolved infinite-loading errors.

  • Problems manually configuring perplexity sonar deep research (topic 365572, Dev, ai)
    Setup hurdles and per-token costs were flagged by aas after quoting sam’s caution on expenses.

  • How to set the home page to be an AI bot? ex: ask.discourse.com (topic 365126, Support, ai)
    Proposals included Automation scripts for auto-enrolling via custom user fields, demonstrated by Lilly.

Activity

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next week! :slight_smile:

69

Overview

This week the community dove into improving AI workflows and tooling across Meta Discourse. Key initiatives included exploring persistent JSON data storage in AI artifacts to empower user‐bound data management, crafting a roadmap for an official Model Context Protocol (MCP) to standardize AI tool integrations, and resolving an audio playback issue in the AI Helper that was interrupting uploaded mp3 streams. We also saw experiments with Discord search integration, tackled subcategory slug bugs in the AI bot’s outputs via Category listing for AI does not return full slugs, and refined content organization using the forum researcher tool. Best practices for Discourse AI examples, discussions on AI‐driven moderation, and proposals to empower the SQL helper rounded out an active week of collaboration.

Interesting Topics

Activity

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next week! :slight_smile:

70

Overview

Over the past week on #meta.discourse.org, the community’s focus centered on the rollout and configuration of Discourse AI’s new Forum Researcher persona, alongside vital bug fixes, self-hosting guidance, and customization requests. Administrators and power users dove into the Forum Researcher AI Persona guide to fine-tune their LLM settings, while several support threads detailed troubleshooting—ranging from mobile UI scroll issues to JSON parsing errors in the researcher tool. Conversations also spanned best practices for self-hosters (spam, #AI-detection), implementing local LLMs, automating AI replies, and renaming or removing default AI personas. This variety of discussions highlights both the excitement around AI-powered features and the community’s dedication to smooth deployment and customization.

Interesting Topics

  • Announcing the Forum Researcher Announcements ai
    sam unveiled the new Forum Researcher persona, a powerful ai-bot tool for in-depth analysis of forum content. The initial announcement ref showcased sample executive reports, and MachineScholar lauded its potential for research workflows ref.

  • Forum Researcher AI Persona guide #Site Management how-to ai ai-bot
    In this comprehensive guide, sam walked administrators through enabling the persona, selecting appropriate Large Language Models, and debugging research tasks ref.

  • Discourse AI spam detection replaces Akismet plugin Announcements spam ai
    Self-hosting concerns emerged when patrickemin discovered Akismet was no longer bundled and asked about alternatives ref. Moin highlighted documentation gaps ref, and sam recommended free Discourse AI models or Gemini Flash 2.0 for self-hosters ref.

  • Mobile AI helper popup cannot be scrolled Bug mobile ai-helper
    NateDhaliwal reported that AI response popups on Android Chrome cut off long answers ref. keegan deployed a fix ref, which NateDhaliwal confirmed resolved the issue ref.

  • Unexpected error in Forum Researcher Bug ai ai-bot
    When noahl tested the new tool, they encountered a JSON parsing error ref. sam traced the issue to the hosted LLM’s capacity ref, and Falco explained the dropdown model access was for early testers ref.

  • Discourse AI – Summarize model upgrade question #Site Management ai-summarize
    Heliosurge asked if Discourse AI had moved from Gemini v1.5 to v2.0 ref. Falco confirmed support for Gemini 2 and 2.5 ref.

  • Configuring Discourse with a locally installed LLM Support ai
    Falco recommended DeepSeek V3, Qwen 3, and Llama 3.3 among top-tier models, and suggested a lightweight Hugging Face option for small communities ref.

  • How to generate AI replies for existing forum topics Support ai automation
    MihirR inquired about backfilling old topics with AI replies ref. satonotdead outlined using Discourse AI + Automation plugins ref, while sam advised this remains a manual API workflow for now ref.

  • Removing default AI personas/bots Support ai-bot
    satonotdead asked if default prompts could be removed via console ref, and Falco explained they’re part of plugin code but noted future support for custom texts ref.

  • Renaming “AI Persona” → “AI Agent” Feature ai
    iamcapote proposed renaming for clarity and requested an editable setting ref.

Activity

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again next week! :slight_smile: