In a Forum I moderate for, we recently updated from February 2026 to July 2026 release, and I am unsure if this is intended or a bug.
We have auto-bumping enabled on our Support category threads, and before the update, they used to give an “Unread message” indicator and bold the thread name so we can actually see the bump.
But now, all it does it move it to the top of the thread list but still keeps the thread as no unread messages, so all our Mods and Support Helpers just miss the bumped threads entirely (we rely on bumps to know if we should ask if it’s still an issue or to close).
Is this a bug or intended? Because it seems to just make the auto-bumping feature almost useless now.
I wouldn’t call it false. There is a new post in the topic, not a full reply, but a small action post.
A while ago a preference was added to let users choose whether the small action post, that a topic was closed should mark the topic as unread, but I am not sure it still works. I asked about it in Small post actions no longer tracked or watched but didn’t receive a reply.
I think the change in that topic is also responsible for bumps no longer mark the topic as unread
A bump can work as a nudge for users to select a solution or otherwise update the topic. That doesn’t work without marking the topic as unread. It’s not something only relevant to staff.
@Joshua8600 I think you would now need a normal reply in the topic. The new workflow plugin can probably help you with automatic replies that bump the topic, but I haven’t taken a look.
Yes, I realize that purpose. But that point hits everyone. Totally different thing, but still the same result: in Facebook groups is quite common habit to tell to a OP that one wants to send a PM, but that bump is sended to everyone in that group. It is then just pure noise, but looks like someone has made a meaningful noise. And that is bothering me. I totally understand some support style forums can live with situation where needs of small moderation/support group creates something that is not useful for big majority, aka. users, but what about more discussion style forums? Well, for that there is an easy solution: do not use auto bump
Auto-bump functioned like this (giving an unread topic marker) for years and then got changed in an update in the last 5-6 months.
I am asking if this was an intended change or a bug because it seems odd to make the feature effectively useless now and remove its sole reason to exist.
I’m not sure about everybody else but I always figured the point of a bump was to have it rank higher in site-wide search results and topic directories, not to mislead you into believing there is a new post in the topic. The auto-bump feature is a bti more niche nowadays but I always figured the blue dot meant something was actually going on with the topic.
Bumping was always a way to get new eyes on a topic; instead of a thread being buried, new eyes can see it that maybe can help out, or to check back in if something was forgotten.
Bumping is a small action post, so in general it was intended. Though bumps are not explicitly mentioned, so I am not sure they were considered separately.
I think it might be helpful to post your feedback in the announcement topic.
This is intentional and not a bug, the feature was intended to be “bump to the top of activity-sorted lists” and the small post triggering a new post indication was a side-effect of all small posts being counted as real posts.
The update for small posts was intended to stop considering them new content, because they’re not really… or at least, they’re not new content on the same level of a post from a person.
Anyway, that really doesn’t help you much… understandably using the new post indicator as part of your workflow is now broken and you want to fix it.
The good news is that there’s now a way to replicate the behavior using our new Workflows plugin… and there’s a lot of flexibility to do some new stuff too, if you’re inclined to.
If you’re on the latest version of Discourse, the Workflow plugin can be enabled from /admin/config/upcoming-changes and then used at /admin/plugins/discourse-workflows/workflows
I’ve created an example workflow you can import and edit if you’d like stale-topic-workflow.json (2.0 KB)
It’s a simple workflow that bumps topics in a category that haven’t had activity for the past week, and makes the System user reply asking if there’s more information or if the topic can be closed.
