I think there are three scenarios to consider:
- Categories page that lists all categories
- Subset of categories that admins set to be in the sidebar
- Subset of categories that users choose to add in their sidebar
It’s not obvious to me that the ordering chosen for (1) should apply to (2) or (3), especially since we currently flatten the list and don’t nest subcategories in the sidebar.
On meta, currently, I have this in my sidebar:
- announcements
- community
- documentation
- ux
If we applied this logic today on meta, my sidebar would be:
- documentation
- ux
- announcements
- community
I feel like I’d look at that, and just think… hmm… why?
And if the list gets longer, scanning it quickly to find the one I’m looking for will be more difficult. When it’s alphabetical, I know which direction to look for the thing I’m trying to find.
On the categories page, it’s different - we’re trying to present everything, in context with descriptions.
It’s clear there’s a desire for additional configuration here for admins, and maybe users too, but I’m not yet sure that applying fixed_category_positions is what we want to do here.