#TipTuesday: Bump and Sink

Time for another #TipTuesday!

Today we’ll be talking about two useful (yet under used) moderation tools: Bump and Sink

I know you might be thinking “that sounds like a bad name for a corny dance move” but stick with me!

As you likely already know, the recent discussions page, category discussion pages and any discussion widgets are all ordered by most recent post. This includes both new discussions, and older discussions with new comments. 

While this sorting method is considered our best practice (so your users are always seeing the trending discussions), sometimes this leads to certain content clogging up the primary page while other content gets lost.

Have you ever wanted to influence the order of your recent discussions on your community without it being obvious that you’re controlling it?

Then let me introduce you to two features you’re going to love:

Bump

While this may sound similar to an announcement, it actually works quite differently. Announcements are generally used to pin certain staff posts to the top of the discussions lists. Posts like “Community Guidelines”, “Latest Release Notes”, or “New Webinars” are commonly announced.

Let’s say you notice a user discussion that you think is very valuable, but doesn’t gain enough traction to start and it gradually falls off the first page of discussions as others get more attention. If you want to give this discussion another chance at the top of the discussions list where it will be seen by more people, you can simply bump it.

This way your admin / moderators can bump up a post without having to manually manipulate it with by commenting on it, and once again highlight a post that may have become buried in a Category.

Sink

The sink feature also allows you to manipulate a post’s position within the recent discussions, but in the opposite direction. 

Let’s say a user posts something that you don’t really want to get any extra attention, but you don’t want go so far as closing the discussion or deleting it completely. Sometimes moderation requires controlling the most visible discussions without being seen as preventing free speech on your community.

The sink feature works perfectly in these situations. Sinking a discussion doesn’t immediately move it to the bottom of the discussion list (which would be an obvious manipulation to your users), but it prevents it from being able to move up when people comment on it. This means that it will organically move down the discussion list as other posts get action, moving it off the first couple of pages that get the most views.

If you’re interested in either of these tools and don’t see them in your Addon list, reach out to your CSM or Implementation PM to toggle it on for you.

Does your moderation team already use either of these features in your community?