The discussion revolves around customizing the sidebar in Discourse, particularly the display of unread and new topic indicators. 10ColorsTenkara asks about CSS to change the appearance of unread counts, noting that users may not find the setting easily. Canapin clarifies that no changes were made to their sidebar and points to a previous thread where similar displays were discussed. Don confirms the sidebar code was updated and shares a link to the relevant discussion. 10ColorsTenkara observes that the unread indicators are now gray and suggests a more visible color. Don suggests creating a guide to help users find the setting and provides CSS to change the color of unread indicators, which 10ColorsTenkara appreciates.
Continuing the discussion from Try out the new sidebar and notification menus!:
@Canapin Please forgive the ignorant question, it’s been awhile since I’ve been here on meta and I’ve not made many CSS changes to my instance in the past couple of years.
What CSS did you use to customize the unread/new/draft in the sidebar? I’ve been searching and not sure what to use.
Thanks much in advance.
That’s expected since I didn’t make any changes to my sidebar. 
Other users had similar displays with unread numbers, see Try out the new sidebar and notification menus! - #240 by MarcP
I notice there are now dots instead.
So I guess the sidebar code was changed at some point during the development.
Yeah, it changed here 
Interesting. In one of the split off topics, they point out that the dots or unread count can now be set by users. It can be found under Preferences>Sidebar>Navigation. I wish it could be set as default by admin. Users on my instance are not tech savvy and would never find that setting or know it exists.
Both here on meta.discourse and on my instance it looks like the following for me, in grey text.
I think they are much easier to see with some other color text.
Hello,
I think create a topic where you introduce the new sidebar could be a good solution for this. You can easily navigate your users to the correct place with a link, using the /my/ parameter.
yoursite.com/my/preferences/sidebar
Like this: https://meta.discourse.org/my/preferences/sidebar
Yes, it’s grayed out to make it look less like a link. This is possible to change by adding some CSS to a component.
For example:
Common > CSS
// Sidebar new/unread color
.sidebar-section-link-wrapper {
.sidebar-section-link {
.sidebar-section-link-content-badge {
color: var(--tertiary);
}
}
// don't change the review link color
.sidebar-section-link-review {
.sidebar-section-link-content-badge {
color: var(--danger);
}
}
}
Lovely, thank you. Not sure why I didn’t think of that. 
Brilliant! Exactly what I was looking for!