The “About” a category topic that is auto-generated does not show up in /latest on my site. By default this seems fine, but when a post is added to one of these topics I’d like to see them show up in /latest. Is there a setting I’m overlooking or is the behavior I’m looking for not possible?
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around the behavior of auto-generated “About this {category}” topics in Discourse, which do not appear in the /latest feed even after new replies are posted. nivshah first reported the issue, noting that while these topics remain visible at the top of their respective category pages, they are excluded from the global /latest view. codinghorror confirmed the behavior is intentional — replies bump the topic within its category but not globally — and speculated it may relate to the topic’s pinned status. nivshah suggested adding a setting to allow customization or a visual indicator to denote these topics as “special,” since they’re being used as combined meta/general hubs. They also asked whether to avoid using auto-generated topics if global visibility is desired nivshah. Jagster offered a counterpoint: while showing “About” topics in /latest could help announce new categories, globally bumping meta-posts may not be ideal policy, calling the situation a “loose/loose” trade-off. The core issue remains unresolved, with no immediate workaround or setting available to change this behavior.
Yes, I tested this on my own self-hosted Discourse site and it looks like you are correct. Replying to the “about this {category}” topic does not bump the topic into latest.
I checked in anonymous and logged in user mode and confirmed, the “about this {category}” topic is not bumped to latest on new reply in either case.
I can’t quite recall why that would be.. perhaps because it is a pinned topic that has become unpinned on read to end? 
FWIW, it still does show up at the top of the specific category’s view. So it’s just… hidden from /latest. When going through category and topic settings I saw nothing obviously different in the “About” topic than any other topic.
Ah yes thank you. So it’s intentional, by design. It bumps itself within the category but not globally.
Right. I guess it would be cool if that was a setting I could modify? Some indicator in the topic settings that this is topic is “special” would be good too. I use those topics as a combined ‘meta’ and ‘general’ for the category, but maybe this isn’t the best practice?
Sorry, just for clarity: would you recommend not using these auto-generated topics if I want them to show up in /latest or is there a possibility of a change here?
But showind ”about” at /latest would be the easiest way to tell to community they have new category.
Otherway, it is not the best policy to bump up globally meta-posts. This is a bit loose/loose situation.