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Moderating discussions

In this article

You can promote healthy collaboration by marking comments as answers, locking or unlocking discussions, converting issues to discussions, and editing or deleting comments, discussions, and categories that don't align with your organization's contribution guidelines.

Who can use this feature

People with triage access to a repository can moderate discussions in the repository. People with triage access to the source repository for organization discussions can moderate discussions in the organization.

About moderating discussions

GitHub Discussions is an open forum for conversation among maintainers and the community for a repository or organization on GitHub Enterprise Server. If you have triage permissions for a repository, you can help moderate that repository's discussions by marking comments as answers, locking discussions that are no longer useful or are damaging to the community, and converting issues to discussions when an idea is still in the early stages of development. Similarly, if you have triage permission for the source repository for organization discussions, you can moderate discussions for that organization.

Marking a comment as an answer

You can mark a comment in the discussion as an answer to the discussion if a discussion is within a category that accepts answers. For more information, see "About discussions."

When you mark a question as an answer, GitHub Enterprise Server will highlight the comment and replies to the comment to help visitors quickly find the answer.

Screenshot of a comment marked as the answer to a discussion.

You can't mark a threaded comment in response to a comment as the answer to a discussion. You also can't mark a minimized comment as the answer to a discussion.

  1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository or organization.

  2. Under your repository or organization name, click Discussions.

    Screenshot of the tabs in a GitHub repository. The "Discussions" option is outlined in dark orange.

  3. In the list of discussions, click the unanswered discussion you want to mark as answered.

    Screenshot of the list of discussions with an unanswered discussion.

  4. In the discussion, find the comment you want to mark as the answer.

  5. Below the comment, click Mark as answer.

    Screenshot of a discussion comment. A button, labeled "Mark as answer", is outlined in dark orange.

  6. Optionally, to unmark a comment as the answer, click Unmark as answer.

Locking discussions

It's appropriate to lock a conversation when the entire conversation is not constructive or violates your community's code of conduct or GitHub's Community Guidelines. You can also lock a conversation to prevent comments on a discussion you want to use as an announcement to the community. When you lock a conversation, people with write access to the repository, or source repository for organization discussions, will still be able to comment on the discussion.

  1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository or organization.

  2. Under your repository or organization name, click Discussions.

    Screenshot of the tabs in a GitHub repository. The "Discussions" option is outlined in dark orange.

  3. In the list of discussions, click the discussion you want to lock.

    Screenshot of the list of discussions with an unanswered discussion.

  4. In the right margin of a discussion, click Lock conversation.

  5. Read the information about locking conversations.

  6. To lock the conversation, click Lock conversation.

  7. When you're ready to unlock the conversation, click Unlock conversation in the right margin of a discussion, then click Unlock conversation.