# Canceling a Category "Watch"

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Tags:** completed\
**Created:** [1월 22, 2014, 3:38오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124 "2014-01-22T15:38:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\
**Post date:** [1월 22, 2014, 5:30오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124/2 "2014-01-22T17:30:05Z")

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The work a category preference does can be best described as

> When a new topic is created in (foo) category, automatically set its notification state to (bar)

Removing a category preference would not reset all existing topics in (foo) category to a different notification state, it just stops _future_ topics from having their notification state set to (bar).

Mute is perhaps different because it is so extreme, mute means “I hate this category with the fire of a thousand suns, every time you show a topic in this category to me I will kill a kitten.” (I may be exaggerating for effect, but mute at the category level basically means make this whole category stop _existing_, so vast suppression in the UI.)

This is probably another request for bulk setting of topic data (category, notification state, etc) on a lot of topics at once through the UI. Has come up dozens of times since launch, we need to get to it eventually.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/canceling-a-category-watch/12124)._