Help:Structured Discussions/Glossary

Nomenclature

 * See this nomenclature together with a picture

The following nomenclature is used in this document to avoid confusion. This nomenclature is development-facing, not user-facing, and terms may change when visible to the user.

Board - a collection of topics, equivalent to a talkpage. There may be only one Board per page. Flow-enabled - a wiki can specify which pages and namespaces should display a Flow board. For example, several projects' Talk pages, or all User_talk pages. Header - content at the top of a Board (introductory text, templates, and similar). There are/will be limitations on what can go in the header. Category links in here, will add the Board to the category. Subscription - the "connective tissue" between a Board and a Topic. Topic - a "workflow instance". In the discussion space, this is a single discussion. This document concerns itself primarily with discussion workflows; however it should be noted that workflow instances can take many forms – votes, polls, Q&As... Topics may be subscribed to by multiple Boards. Summary - a Topic can be summarized (similar to en:Template:Archive top), or can have explanatory templates (like hatnote or tracked). Category links in here, will add the Topic to the category. Other workflows (not yet implemented) might be more elaborate, e.g. "Closed. Answer #7 to this question was accepted by the originator on 2013-10-15". Post - an atomic reply, comment, or object whose parent is a Topic. Reply - a child Post of another Post. In the current release, there are seven levels of replies. Replies are only diagonal if you are replying to. MVP - an acronym standing for "Minimum Viable Product". Moderation - A topic or a post can be "moderated" in 3 ways: Hide, Delete, and Suppress.
 * Topic Titlebar - the area collecting metadata, which currently includes: topic title, timestamp of last activity, number of comments.
 * Lock - A topic can be "locked" by an admin (the default permissions, but can be changed). This is similar to en:Template:Archive top but more strict.

Picture
Here's an annotated picture (from November, out of date):