As an Admin, you are provided with a number of "options" with which to manage community discussion threads and their content (the individual "posts"). These tools ensure that you have control over the content in your discussions, and they simplify this content-management by giving you the ability to:

• edit a post,
• close and re-open a post,
• pin a post,
• promote a post (i.e., mark it as the best answer),
• moderate a post by marking it as inappropriate and, when necessary,
• delete and/or remove a post.

Each of these management actions has a specific purpose, and having multiple options ensures that you can manage your community content in the way that you think is best for your community and your community users.

Access and manage a Discussion thread

The content-management options that are described in this article are:

• available per Discussion thread or Reply; you cannot multi-select discussions or replies to manage them "in bulk."
• available from Discussion thread and Reply dropdown menus.
• applicable to only Discussion thread/Reply content. (Q&A threads and Answers have some similarities and are described in Manage Questions & Answers.)

Navigate to any discussion thread/reply that you want to manage and click the down-arrow icon (next to the Reply button, as shown below) to manage the thread/reply.

The options that display depend on:

• the settings that have been configured (e.g., Mark as Inappropriate displays only if a community is set to Self Moderation) and
• the permissions level of the user (e.g., Reindex will only ever display to Super Admins and Community Admins).

This article describes all of the possible options.

TIP: Replies to a discussion have the additional menu options that are indicated in the image.

Discussion thread (original post)	Reply to a discussion

NOTE: The Close Thread and Re-open Thread options are not shown in the images above. These are, however, described in this article.

The sections that follow describe all of the available options. Use the Jump to... links of the right side of this article page to quickly access option information.

Make Best Answer

NOTE: This feature is disabled by default. Super Admins can enable the Make Best Answer feature in Page Designer, as described later in this section.

This option gives Super Admins, Community Admins, and the thread's author the ability to call attention to a reply that is, for example, particularly helpful.

When one of these users clicks the Make Best Answer option for a reply, that reply is tagged "Best Answer" right on the title line so that others can easily see that this is a "recommended" answer.

NOTE: A thread can have only one "best answer." However, the "best answer" designation can be cleared from one reply and applied to a different one.

In addition, the original discussion thread is marked with a Jump To Best Answer link at the top right, so that users can clearly see that there is a best answer and can quickly access it.

Clear a best answer

When a reply has been marked as the best answer, the Clear Best Answer option is added to the dropdown menu.

• To clear a best-answer designation, open the menu and select Clear Best Answer.

The "Best Answer" tag is removed from the reply and the "best answer" designation can be applied to a different reply.

Enable the Best Answer option

The ability for Community Admins, Super Admins, and original posters to mark discussion posts as the Best Answer is disabled by default. This is done intentionally in case this feature is not wanted or applicable to specific communities. If you want to use this feature, it must be enabled on a community by community basis via the Discussion Thread View widget.

To enable this feature:

1. Navigate to the Discussion tab in the community for which you want to enable this feature.
2. In the Admin Toolbar, click (or right click for a new tab) Edit Page.

3. Select the Discussion Thread View widget (it may have a different name in your community) and click the edit icon.

4. In the widget configuration window, toggle the Show Make Best Answer Option? toggle to YES.

Reply Privately

Select this option to respond directly to and only to the author of the post.

Your reply:

• is delivered to the author's community inbox.
• does not display in the thread.

NOTE: If the author posted anonymously, this option does not display.

Mark as Inappropriate (moderate)

If a community is set to Self Moderation, the Mark as Inappropriate option displays for each discussion thread and each Reply, and the menu option is visible to all members. This is how the community "self moderates:" all users can moderate other users' content.

When content is marked as inappropriate, it is temporarily hidden from the thread and is sent to the moderation queue. An Admin can either:

• approve the content; it is restored in the discussion or
• reject the content, in which case, it remains unavailable in the discussion.

NOTE: Super Admins and Community Admins can set a community to Full Moderation in order to have more control over the content. This setting requires that all new content be reviewed and approved before it ever displays in the community.

See Manage Community Settings to learn more about moderation and how to enable it.

Pin post to top

Within a given thread, there's often a post that holds significant importance. In these instances, you'll likely want to ensure it's not overlooked by your readers, especially in large threads with dozens of posts, and the best way to do this is to flag it with the Pin post to top feature, available in the post's actions menu.

NOTE: Pinned posts are marked with a pin. You can unpin a post at any time by selecting Unpin this post from the menu.

What does pinning a post do?

The main thing to understand is that pinning a post does NOT display it at the top of the discussion thread but rather it's added to the Latest Discussions List widget - this widget is generally displayed on a Higher Logic Thrive Community's Home page and individual community Home pages, as shown below.

Keep in mind that, by default, this widget is not configured to show pinned posts; if you'd like it to do so, you need to enable one of the following options:

• Show Only Pinned Posts? - Enable this to display only pinned posts.
• Show Pinned Posts at Top? - Enable this if you want a mixture of pinned and unpinned posts, with pinned posts having priority at the top of the widget.

Reindex

Higher Logic gives Admins the ability to "reindex" much of their community content, including Discussion threads.

• Reindexing is simply "refreshing" the content, similar to reloading a page in a web browser.

To learn about reindexing content in your community (e.g., who can reindex site content; which content can be reindexed), see Reindex Content Items.

Edit

To edit the content of a discussion thread, navigate to it and select Edit from the dropdown menu.

• Users can edit only the content that they created; Admins can edit all user-generated content.

Remove

IMPORTANT: Removing a post is different than deleting one. The content/text no longer displays when a post is removed, but a visual record of it remains in the thread. Whereas, a deleted post is permanently and irrevocably deleted from the thread and the system, as described in Delete reply, below.

Remove a post

1. Navigate to the post that you want to remove and expand its actions menu.
2. Click Remove and then click Yes in the confirmation message.

NOTE: A post that was removed remains in the thread structure but its content is removed and replaced with the default text "This post was removed." Additionally, all reference to the author is sanitized.

WARNING: Removing the initial post in a thread is the same as deleting it: It will be permanently deleted. The remove functionality is applicable only to replies to a thread or post.

Delete a removed post

After a reply to a post has been removed, its content is replaced with the default message, "This post was removed."

To permanently delete a removed post:

1. Navigate to the removed post and expand its actions menu.
2. Click Delete reply and then confirm the deletion.

Delete reply

IMPORTANT: Deleting a post is different than removing one. A deleted post is permanently and irrevocably deleted from the system; whereas a visual record of a removed post remains in the thread, as described in Remove, above.

Delete a post

1. Navigate to the post that you want to delete and expand its actions menu.
2. Click Delete reply and then click Yes in the confirmation message.

Post-deleting dependencies

Every post in a thread can be deleted. However, not every post can be immediately deleted; there are some "dependency" considerations.

A post — whether it's an "original" post or a reply — cannot be deleted as long as there is a "child" post (i.e., a reply) associated to it. Replies can have their own replies!

Child posts have to be deleted before you can delete:

• the thread's "original" post or
• the reply to which it is a child.

TIP: If the Delete option is not available for the post you want to delete, take a moment to analyze the flow of replies in the thread. To demonstrate reply-dependency, we present two examples below.

Wolf Talk is a post that has received two replies ("child" posts)

In this scenario:

• Wolf Talk cannot be deleted until both of its "child" posts have been deleted
• Each Wolf Talk "child" post can be individually deleted (or removed, as described in the next section)

Tiger Talk is a post that has received a reply from Liz and a reply from Jane; Jane's reply has received a reply from Tom

In this scenario, one of the "child" posts has its own "child" post, so:

• Tiger Talk cannot be deleted until all of the "child" posts (in this case, three posts) have been deleted
• Liz's post can be immediately deleted (or removed, as described in the next section)
• Jane's post cannot be deleted until Tom's post has been deleted (however, Jane's post can be removed, as described in the next section)
• Tom's post can be immediately deleted (or removed, as described in the next section)

TIP: As posts and replies receive additional replies, this "delete-dependency" becomes increasingly difficult to manage.

Close Thread & Re-open Thread

NOTE: These options are not shown in the menu images above because the Show Close Thread Option parameter is not enabled.

Super Admins and Community Admins can close and re-open discussion threads. When a discussion thread is closed, it is visible to users, but they cannot add a reply.

This menu option is enabled with the Show Close Thread Option parameter; it is not enabled by default. A Super Admin has to enable it on the Discussion Thread View widget, as shown below.

When the feature is toggled on, the Close Thread option displays to Admins in each discussion's dropdown menu, as shown below.

If selected:

• the discussion thread will not accept new replies;
• a message displays, indicating that the thread has been closed by an admin;
• the thread displays a lock icon next to the star ("you are following") icon on the community's Threads (or Discussions) tab;
• the discussion thread and it's pre-Close replies remain visible; and
• the Re-open Thread option displays next to the Reply option, as shown below.

NOTE: If a closed thread is re-opened, the reply functionality is fully restored.

Expand/collapse the Summary View

Within a discussion thread, there's what's called the Summary View above the initial post and its replies.

This view makes it easy to quickly see all of the replies a post has received, and to jump to any you're interested in reading (just click a link to do so).

You can directly control whether the Summary View is fully expanded or collapsed by clicking the Expand all and Collapse all buttons at the top right of the page.

If the Summary View is not needed, collapsing it saves space on the page, and looks like this:

TIP: You can click the chevrons of individual replies to more granularly expand/collapse the Summary View.

NOTE: Whether the Summary View is expanded or collapsed has no bearing on the actual discussion posts and replies in a thread; the Summary View is a separate section on the page.

Discussions widget

Discussions have a dedicated widget — the Latest Discussions widget — that displays by default on a site's home page and provides easy access to the most recent Discussion posts.

See Best-practice Feed widgets in Widgets - Vehicles for Dynamic Content for more information.

Related articles

• Discussions and Q&A (Threads) Reports
• Move Threads Tool describes how Super Admins can move discussion threads and question threads to a different community.
• Merge Community Content Tool describes how Super Admins can move community content from one or more Source communities to one Destination community.