Difference between required topic and exclusive topic

Basically exclusive topics ignore all non-topic responses.

So if you had:

default: What else do you want to chat about?

default: What else do you want to know about sports?
require topic: sports

Do you like me?
response: I like you a little bit.

What?
response: What about what?

What?
response: Are we talking about sports?
topic: sports

What?
response: What sport are we talking about?
require topic: sports

Lets talk about sports
response: What sport are we talking about?
exclusive topic: sports

So if the user asks "What?" the bot would respond "What about what?" or "Are we talking about sports?" as the topic is not "required". If the user asks "Do you like me?" the bot will respond "I like you a little bit.". If the user asks "something else" the bot will respond "What else do you want to chat about?".

If the "sports" topic is active (user said "Lets talk about sports"), then if the user asks "What?" the bot would respond "What sport are we talking about?" or "Are we talking about sports?" as the topic is active. If the user asks "Do you like me?" the bot will not respond "I like you a little bit." as the topic is exclusive and the response does not match the topic. It will instead use its topic default "What else do you want to know about sports?". If the user asks "something else" the bot will respond "What else do you want to know about sports?".

If the topic was not exclusive, then if the user had asked "Do you like me?" the bot would have responded with "I like you a little bit.".

So exclusive topics let you isolated a conversation from your bot's other responses. Note that if you set a topic to be exclusive it is a property of the topic, not the response, it applies anywhere the topic is used.

Thanks.  This is great explanation.

Well, I have 2 queries.

Once exclusive topic is set (user said "Lets talk about sports"),  then how do I set it null? if someone ask What? and answer is "are we talking about sports", will it reset exclusiveness as this answer has just topic and not exclusive.

One more thing is, I don't want any answer without topic (due to conflicting answers for same question across topic). So I have set "required topic" for all responses and I ask user to select topic first. How do I set topic before user ask anything? As soon as chat starts, I want to set some default topic and then on User can change topic and all response from that topic will be answered. How do i achieve that?

You can clear the topic using the Self code "conversation.topic = null" either from a Template or a think block.

You can set the initial topic in a greeting.

greeting: Welcome, lets talk about sports.
topic: sports

clear the topic
template: Okay, I was getting tired of talking about {conversation.topic} anyway. {think(conversation.topic=null)}
condition: conversation.topic != null

clear the topic 2
Okay, I was getting tired of talking about it anyway.
think: conversation.topic = null;