Tag descriptions are no longer shown anywhere outside the tag page since #42005

Contribute Bug

AI-generated summary

thoka reported that tag descriptions became invisible in the main UI following PR #42005, which removed the title attribute for accessibility reasons. Unlike categories, tags lack alternative display locations like “about” topics, leaving descriptions visible only on dedicated tag pages. The reporter argued this is a bug because the data is still sent to the client but ignored by the renderer, and suggested using Discourse’s DTooltip component. A theme component workaround was also provided.

awesomerobot clarified that this change was intentional and therefore not a bug, but rather a UX issue. They noted that descriptions are technically accessible via other means, though less discoverable. The moderator emphasized that implementing hover tooltips for tags is problematic due to data asymmetry and poor usability on mobile devices, where tags function as links. They recommended the existing tag banners component for displaying descriptions on tag lists and stated that broader visibility improvements would be handled as a feature request.

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claude wrote this bug report for a case, we just wrote a workaround for:

Since #42005 (“A11Y: don’t use the title attribute for category and tag descriptions”, July 2026), tag descriptions have no visible place left in the main UI.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Give a tag a description, for example Kreiselternrat for the tag KER.
  2. Open /latest, /categories, a topic with that tag, or the tag chooser in the composer.
  3. Hover over or focus the tag.

Expected: some accessible way to read the description, as before the change (where it was the title tooltip).

Actual: nothing. The description only shows on /tag/ and on /tags.

Why I think this is a bug, not just a design choice

The PR says the information is “already available in the ‘about this category’ topic, in category dropdowns, category headings”. That holds for categories. It does not hold for tags: there is no about topic, the tag chooser rows do not show it, and the topic list does not show it.

The data is still sent to the client and passed to the renderer, which just ignores it:

  • defaultRenderTag in frontend/discourse/app/lib/render-tag.js receives params.description (topic list, topic title, search via tags_descriptions) and drops it.
  • frontend/discourse/select-kit/components/tag-row.gjs passes description=this.item.description to dDiscourseTag, and it is dropped as well.

I agree that a title attribute is the wrong tool. The PR itself suggests an accessible tooltip/toggletip instead. Discourse has DTooltip in float-kit, which works on hover and keyboard focus. Could tags (and the tag chooser rows) use that, maybe behind a site setting?

Workaround for anyone who needs it now: a small theme component that does exactly that with api.replaceTagRenderer and the float-kit tooltip service, on hover and keyboard focus: GitHub - thoka/discourse-tag-description-tooltip: Discourse theme component: show the tag description in a tooltip on hover and focus · GitHub

2 Likes
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It’s not a bug, at least by how we define bugs. Generally we consider bugs functionality that isn’t working as intended, and these were intentional changes. More of a UX issue in this case.

the information is available on topic lists, in a way that’s accessible and reached the same by everyone:

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It is harder to find, and if there’s broad interest in making the descriptions more visible that’s a feature request we can consider.

We also provide the Tag Banners component, which puts descriptions into a banner on the tag topic lists.

Tooltips on tags aren’t really something we can implement well as an option, because they have a similar issue as the title attribute with data asymmetry… hover tooltips are fine on desktop, but don’t work on mobile, especially considering tags are usually links so a click activation is already spoken for.