I don’t know what’s going on, or what ActivityPub even is, but I think that is what causes this issue: This topic does not have a category, only a tag. Surely this is not intended?

Relevant screenshots: [This image shows a social media discussion on Discord about how content warnings are not reflected in topic titles. (Captioned by AI)] [The image shows a list of notifications from a chat app on a mobile device, featuring icons, text, and colors for different issues, including a "Test admin guide to tags in admin guide," "Content warnings," and "How to include the 'Request' Button." (Captioned by AI)]

Ah, interesting. The #activitypub tag is configured to receive topics from another community vi the ActivityPub protocol (it’s a two-way sync, topics and replies on meta also go to the other community). However, it looks like the plugin doesn’t pick a default category for the topics it creates. I am not sure if this is strictly a plugin issue or an issue with meta. @tobiaseigen is there a site setting for “default category to pick when none is specified”? I see we have a default composer category but that’s not quite the same thing.

[image] NateDhaliwal: This topic does not have a category, only a tag. Surely this is not intended? This is intended. [image] pmusaraj: “default category to pick when none is specified” I don’t think there’s such a thing as a default category in Discourse currently (strictly speaking). As you say, a default category in the composer is a different thing.

@angus This also happened here. Is there a way to fix this, or is it not possible to specify the category when making the post via ActivityPub (to my understanding, this is Discourse (@Discourse@mastodon.social) - Mastodon), I think? Perhaps a setting that would move topics created by ActivityPub into a specified category?

Thanks for the suggestions @NateDhaliwal. [image] NateDhaliwal: Is there a way to fix this, or is it not possible to specify the category when making the post via ActivityPub (to my understanding, this is Discourse (@Discourse@mastodon.social) - Mastodon), I think? To clarify that topic you linked to was originally created on socialhub.activitypub.rocks. You can see where it was originally posted in the ActivityPub info. [Screenshot at May 01 09-28-20] [image] NateDhaliwal: Perhaps a setting that would move topics created by ActivityPub into a specified category? Perhaps if I go over how this works a little more you might see why that wouldn’t make sense. Discourse supports two type of ActivityPub actors who can publish and receive posts: categories and tags. Currently on meta there are two categories and four tags which have ActivityPub enabled. You can see them here. To achieve what you’re suggesting, the way to do that is to just create a category actor. Posts received by #announcements or #feature (i.e. posts sent to announcements@meta.discourse.org or feature@meta.discourse.org) simply go directly into those categories (if the category actor has “full topic” enabled). What you’re noticing is that posts received by a tag actor, e.g. activitypub@meta.discourse.org for #activitypub, don’t automatically go into a specific category. If you think about it within the context I’ve outlined, it would be a bit strange if they did. The role of a tag is to taxonomically group topics across different categories. If there were a default category into which all posts sent to activitypub@meta.discourse.org ended up in, then we should just create an #activitypub category and create an actor for that, instead of a tag. Just stepping back a bit, if you think about this more broadly, it may be better to use a tag for a generic taxonomy like #activitypub instead of a category, and manually categorise incoming topics as needed. There are more specific actors relating to specific categories, however #activitypub may encompass a variety of types of topics. Fundamentally this comes down to how a community wants to manage itself and its relationship with the fediverse. I don’t think technical solution is required here, at least not yet. Perhaps @tobiaseigen will have some further thoughts on how he wants to approach this question.

Topics made with ActivityPub don't have a category?

Product Support

NateDhaliwal (Nate Dhaliwal) May 1, 2025, 7:54am 7

I see. Thanks for the clarification!

Topic		Replies	Views
Setting up an ActivityPub Actor Administrators video , activitypub	10	1502	January 6, 2025
ActivityPub "publish all posts" action not working in a private message with Ai personas converted into a topic Product Support activitypub	9	273	April 22, 2025
Default category Feature	33	7905	May 20, 2019
Asking how to automatically write tag in composing a topic Product Support	3	1612	September 13, 2020
Topic published on 'Invalid date' with ActivityPub Bug activitypub	6	333	August 29, 2025

Topics made with ActivityPub don't have a category?

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