Categories and Latest Topics front page view should resepect "number of topics shown on the categories page" setting

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In a discussion about the ‘Categories and Latest Topics’ front page view, mattdm requests that the setting ‘Number of topics shown on the categories page’ also apply to the Latest list on desktop, to prevent one category from overwhelming others — a feature that already works on mobile. Stephen objects, arguing that limiting topics per category would make the ‘Latest’ page misleading, as it would no longer show truly the latest topics across all categories, but rather a sampled subset — which he finds less useful for his workflow. He unmarked the prior ‘solved’ status since the original question wasn’t fully addressed. mattdm acknowledges the semantic point and suggests renaming the view to something like ‘Categories and Per-Category Latest’ to clarify its function. Stephen frames it as a ‘category overview’ rather than a true latest feed. The core tension is between maintaining a comprehensive latest feed versus balancing representation across categories — with users divided on whether the latter should override the literal meaning of ‘Latest’.

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Continuing the discussion from Limit number of topics from each category on Latest page:

The above is marked “solved”, but it turns out to be a workaround and the actual answer is “nope”. I have the same concern about one category overwhelming the others.

On mobile, the per-category setting “Number of topics shown on the categories page” works just fine (although obviously a little differently, since the topics are separated by categories).

I’m using desktop category page style “Categories and Latest Topics”, and expected (and would like!) that setting to apply to the Latest list.

I gather from the linked post above that the answer is “nope”… but could that be changed? People who want that list to have everything could choose some large number, and the setting would become meaningful for everyone else…

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That would also not make it the latest topics, surely? More a “sample of latest from across all categories”.

I treat latest as an inbox of sorts, but favor certain higher traffic categories. If latest featured less of those the name would both be misleading, and it would be less useful to me.

I’ve unmarked the solution though, because yes it didn’t answer the initial question.

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I guess so, sure. There are already a bunch of options like “Categories and Latest” and “Categories and Top Topics” — I guess this is “Categories and Per-Category Latest” or something?

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It’s a category overview, of sorts?

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