Topics turn a group into several threads inside one chat. Members choose which to open, each has its own unread count, and a conversation about one thing stops burying a conversation about another.
It is the single best structural change available to a busy group, and it is also the one most likely to be switched on too early.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Turn a group into a set of topics.
- check_circle Design a topic list people will actually use.
- check_circle Keep members from posting everything in the wrong one.
- check_circle Judge whether your group is large enough to need it.
The group opens on a list of topics rather than on a stream of messages.
view_stream One room becomes a corridor
Without topics, a group is a single stream and every conversation competes with every other. Somebody asking a support question interrupts a discussion about scheduling, and both get worse.
With topics, each has its own thread and its own unread badge, so a member can follow the two they care about and ignore the rest without leaving. That is the actual benefit: not tidiness, but the ability to ignore things without missing them.
The cost is that a group now has a structure somebody has to maintain, and members have to choose where to post. Both of those are real work, and neither is worth doing in a group of fifteen people talking about one thing.
Four decisions when setting it up
The first is whether to do it at all.
rule The signal to look for
checklist Naming them
admin_panel_settings Creation rights
autorenew The ongoing work
Topics let people ignore things without missing them. Add one when a conversation already exists.
settings Turning it on
- Open the group settings as an admin Topics are enabled there.
- Create three or four Named after what people want to do.
- Keep a general topic For everything that fits nowhere.
- Decide who may create new ones Admins only, for a working group.
- Pin the important ones So the list is ordered by importance.
- Close the dead ones Rather than letting the list grow.
This page is the switch and the first four topics. The curriculum step is running one properly: structuring a large community into threads, moderating each separately, and the patterns that keep a forum from becoming a list of abandoned rooms.
At a glance
- 1Turn on topics
Topics split a large group into separate threads.
- 2Few topics
Start with a handful that people already talk about.
- 3Mute a topic
Members can mute one topic without leaving.
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