A discussion has been started to consider removing topics from muted categories from the “Latest” list on the forum’s home page. Dev0mar suggests this change could increase user engagement by allowing users to quickly see relevant posts. Currently, muted categories still appear in the list, which can be annoying and clutter the page with uninteresting topics.
Dev0mar and incapaz have shared examples of this issue, including screenshots of their forum home pages. codinghorror notes that there is no inheritance in Discourse, so users need to mute each subcategory individually for them to be excluded from the list.
The “Latest” list on the forum’s home page is (at times) really useful, though having topics from a category I have muted yet still show up in the Latest posts list is a bit annoying as it washes away posts I may actually be interested in from the Categories I DON’T have muted…
I believe this could also lead to more user engagement on the forum as someone can quickly pop in the forum and check out the Latest posts, and they’d have a much higher chance they’ll see something they could be interested in.
As an example, this is a section on the homepage of the community I am in:
I have not visited any of these topics in order for them to be marked as such, as well as their parent sub-category is marked as “Muted” yet they still appear on my latest list
Sorry if this isn’t the place to post this, I wasn’t really certain so I just posted in the place I thought it may fit in the best… ?
While this is for categories mine is basically very similar so I saw no reason to make a new topic.
On our discourse forum there is an introduction megathread for new members. I have it muted because it always clutters the topics shown on the home page of our forum
There is also a second megathread where people can enroll in an opt-in beta program. Have it muted as well because it’s just the same replies. But since new members reply to it the topic always shows at the top
