Help:Structured Discussions/Permalinks

Permalinks allow users to create a link to a Topic, or to quote precise elements from a Topic.

Like other pages on your wiki, a Board's permalink is the URL displayed on the browser's navigation bar, or, for internal links, the page title. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User talk:Example and [[User talk:Example]] are both permalinks to the whole board.

A Topics namespace is Topic:

If you are on a Board, the Topic's permalink can be found by clicking on the three-dots icon, on the right side. If you are on the Topic itself, then the Topic's permalink is the URL displayed on the browser's navigation bar, or by clicking on the three-dots icon.

Topic links are formatted with a random sequence of characters, their universally unique identifier (UUID). This link does not currently have a hierarchical relationship between the Board and the Topic. Example: Topic:Sojhhtquzbhj3d7q

The UUID enables a Topic's title to be changed, e.g. to make it clearer, without needing to worry about breaking any incoming links. It is also needed by some future features, where a Topic may be displayed on multiple boards, or multiple wikis. A URL using the title was not possible to create, because many topics have similar titles: "Hello", "Thank you", "I need your help", etc. We are studying a way to have more human-readable URLs, which will still include the unique ID.

A Post's permalink is reachable by clicking on the three-dots icon, on the right side of the message itself.

Post links are formatted with a Topic's permalink and an anchor to the Post itself.

Example: Topic:Sojhhtquzbhj3d7q#flow-post-sojhhtr5w6j2go86

In order to highlight a particular topic, some elements may be added by Flow to the URL you will have in your browser address bar. Copying this URL will still work.

Tip: If you include another Post's permalink in your own comment, then any user who clicks on that link will see the post highlighted by a green bar.