that would be very useful if we can somehow archive our discussions we don't need any more for discussion or decision making but we still need it as references or other ways of use.

Sorry to up this discussion, but it looks like it never came to a conclusion (there were surely other priorities one year ago). The "archiving" subject started here, it continued here, and it was launched again here, and not sure I found all of them but this one seems to be the most advanced one. If you know a more appropriate thread about this, please let me know.

Talking about 'archives', we should not miss what it is: something that does not appears in front, but that everyone can consult if needed.

Moreover, an 'archived discussion' should be a closed discussion, in which we can't comment again, unless it is opened again, or a new one is opened.

Till now, my trick is to create a group called "ARCHIVES", and I put in discussions I don't want users to be bothered with anymore. I made it private so that users don't effectively see them and can't effectively comment them again, but my wish is that users could still read them, in a specific 'archived' tab, or at the bottom of other discussions.

This last point makes me come to a conclusion: as you may develop a 'pin up this discussion' feature to put discussions at the top with a flag "sticky", you may develop nearly the same 'archive this discussion' feature that would put discussions at the bottom with a flag "archived" (and deactivate comments).

Thank you @Grégoire Barrault - I agree! This feature is in the roadmap: https://trello.com/c/nvuXmHPB

I hope we can build it soon.

@robertguthrie in our groups, rename the title of a discussion to prefix it with [closed] when it's over or when the decision is implemented or refused.
"pin to the bottom" seems more convenient than renaming the title of the discussions.

The only thing that bothers me a little is that it hapen from time to time that someone add a comment to an old discussion after it's closed. If it remains pinned to the bottom, people might miss it (for dummies discussions, it is the intention but if we use it as a flag to indicate the discussion is closed it might be annoying)

I should precise my idea: when you click the 'archive discussion' button, it should work nearly like the 'pin up' button, since the discussion get sticked to bottom instead of top, but moreover, the comments should be closed when using 'archive discussion'. And to keep being clear the button should be called 'archive', and not 'pin bottom'..

I think I find the features, as described, clearer than what is being suggested. A button to close a discussoin, and a way to see closed discussions seems more direct and clear than "pin to bottom"

Archiving has been in the backlog for a while... feel free to vote on it. https://trello.com/c/nvuXmHPB

I agree it's a good idea.

i'm in favor of functionality found in GitHub issues, namely being able to:
- close discussions
- label discussions with arbitrary tags
- filter discussions (from within the page listing discussions) for open/closed status and any labels

i think what's being proposed here is very specific to one use case, where a more general solution might be better for more use cases.

@ahdinosaur I agree... most of that is in the roadmap backlog. We've intentionally not made any implementation decisions because we need to sit down and design a cohesive feature set to meet these needs. Some of the functionality will come in with the 1.0 alpha interface, but probably not all of it.

Sorry for this false notification, I said I would set 2 months for voting, I may have miss-clicked; now it is corrected.

@Grégoire Barrault It would actually be better to set a much shorter closing date. Do we really need to keep this open for two months? This project moves so fast who knows what the focus will be two months from now. I would suggest only a week at maximum.

@alanna you are right. Development evolves faster than that and 2 months is probably too much.

For the previous proposition I set one week, but it seems members hadn't time to check their Loomio's activity, at least. This time I set more to see if more people would vote. There are twice more voters till now, but it may be the result of a more tangible proposition. Or people really like this feature so they have a motivation to connect and vote, whereas sometimes they don't feel affected by what is proposed.

Also, as archive feature is a 'later' improvement on trello, we are not in a hurry, so I set 15 days from now instead of 2 months, and let's see what happen...

@ahdinosaur , yes it's specific to one use, but all groups end up needing it as the number of discussions inevitably grows. This feature remains compatible with close, label, and filter ones. For example, the archive function would use the label 'archived', or the close function if it exists.

I assume that what is proposed here is a bit heavier than just filter, since the concept of archiving takes a crucial part in the group management process itself. Having specific buttons and access would help to formalize this step in the process, and newcomers would understand instantly what is passed and what is present.

A question, has there been any discussion about 'saving' Loomio group discussions when Loomio is being used by public sector types who need to comply with public records requirements, etc.?

@simon1 yes there has been discussion about the need for archiving. I think it will go along with a feature to save as a printable PDF format as well.

Thanks for responding to my question, @alanna. It's good to know that archiving for recordkeeping purposes is on the agenda.

Will search results look for content in achieved discussions ?

@Grégoire Barrault thanks for hosting this proposal and creating that nice outcome! This feature will definitely make it into the roadmap at some point. Right now, we're focused on finishing the transition to Loomio 1.0, but early next year we'll have a chance to look at new functionality users want.