The Categories page in Discourse has inaccurate stats for categories and subcategories. DeanMarkTaylor pointed out that the numbers do not include posts from subcategories, creating a negative appearance of inactivity. This issue affects users’ perception of forum activity when considering joining. tonninseteli also reported inconsistencies in the behavior of the category page, including issues with manual refreshes and announcement clicks. However, neil has since fixed the count issue, ensuring that subcategory counts are now included in the category stats, as seen in the GitHub commit.
Within the screenshot above you will see category stats (circled on right), these stats do not include any of the posts from the subcategories giving a negative appearance of inactivity with the forum / category.
In addition if there are no posts in the top-level category there are no numbers indicated in the topic stats - again reflecting negatively on the forum overall - because other categories do contain these stats.
A user reviewing a forum may check the categories section to see how active a specific category is in considering if they should join.
Personally I believe it should include the subcategories in the stats as visually the sub-categories are not seperate in the row the numbers are for. Either that or a change in display / representation of the subcategories.
It appears there is some weirdness with categories page in my sandbox too; the balloon on top right corner and unread/new all display (correct enough) number of new messages but category view requires manual refresh and latest/unread are refreshed once the announcement is clicked afair?
What is the intended behaviour with these and are there any plans to make it somewhat more consistent? It seems intentional but they might as well act the same in some scenarios.
We’ve discussed earlier preferring one over another but again, I like how the category page gives you a quick overview of what’s new, somit would be cool to get a fresh view asap.
