In a feature request to remove “about” from search stop words, one1 highlights a critical usability issue where unpinned “About” posts become unsearchable when the term is excluded. They note that while searching for “about” yields no results, adding context like “about the x category” works, suggesting the current stop word list is too generic. one1 asks if the default list can be overridden, referencing previous discussions on the topic. sam explains that the stop word list is controlled by Postgres configuration rather than Discourse directly, making changes complex and potentially risky. Consequently, sam classifies this as a feature request rather than a simple configuration fix. one1 accepts this explanation, acknowledging it is the answer they needed despite not being the desired outcome.
I recently ran into this problem when a moderator was trying to find the “About” post in a specific category. They had unpinned the post. Searching for just the word “about” gave no results, but searching for “about the x category” gave the exact post.
This seems like such a simple thing to fix and such an obvious problem. How many Discourse categories must there exist in the world that have an “About” post and they are all unsearchable.
