# Category creep and information overload **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-creep-and-information-overload/62493 **Category:** UX **Created:** [May 11, 2017, 8:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-creep-and-information-overload/62493 "2017-05-11T08:37:27Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 2
### Author: ![LeoMcA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/leomca/32/87233_2.png) [@LeoMcA](https://meta.discourse.org/u/LeoMcA) #### Post date: [May 11, 2017, 11:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-creep-and-information-overload/62493/2 "2017-05-11T11:59:33Z")
I’ve picked out a few quotes which resonate with me, and the problems we’re facing with Mozilla’s Discourse instance: > [@Rob\_Nicholson](#): > > they have decided to migrate all 200 branches to Discourse. And by default, everyone will see all the branches which will flood the UX with a very long sub-category list, the sub-category dropdown list will be unmanageable plus user’s timeline will be flooded with posts from branches which they are not interested in. We’re at about 200 categories in total at the moment, and it’s a _mess_. The first area that’s observable for us is the /categories page, which we use as our homepage. Redesigning it has been on my radar for a while, but I haven’t got round to it yet. My general idea is to make it a lot like the following: [Forums — Mozilla](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/#particularly-important-forums), adding a level of categorisation above the category level, an instant search bar, and a category-categorisation above all others containing categories you’re subscribed to. I think this category-categorisation would particularly help with a problem we share, which is having a huge number of subcategories in a category which itself doesn’t get a lot of posts: (I assume no-one is posting in “My Branch” directly) ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/4/a/4a9ea73251fc3b5cb37fa447258c973d13ffcd88.png) Moving all these subcategories to top level categories (with a ‘Communities’ category-categorisation) _will_ make other areas of the UI completely unusable and requiring of a redesign, _but_ they’re _barely_ useable at the moment: ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/3/d/3d1fecfb01b03248228917a4ba7f94a61b58197b.png) One thought I’ve had is replacing these lists of categories with lists of the category-categorisations instead. > [@Rob\_Nicholson](#): > > I’m aware that you can mute a category but that’s too draconian. Once muted, it’s very hard to find that category again. Out of those 200 branches, there is my own branch that I’m interested in but I’m also occasionally interested in some of the surrounding branches. I think for forum setups like ours there’s a need for “Normal” categories to behave a lot more like “Muted” ones, in that its topics shouldn’t appear in quite so many places. On Mozilla’s instance, Latest and New are basically completely useless, containing topics ranging between [add-on development](https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/example-webextension-repository-with-tests/15538/1), [Swiss VR](https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/webvr-workshop-in-lausanne/15500/1) and [non-English posts](https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/topic/15513/1). No user should be assumed to be interested in all those things by default, and I think on forums like ours the behaviour of Discourse needs to change with that in mind: not assuming you’re interested in every topic by default, but only ones which you’ve explicitly expressed an interest in (by subscribing to them, or the category they reside in, in some way). My previous thoughts in this area has been to make a tab which does what the above paragraph describes, and I’ve thought this should be the Unread tab. It seems [for technical reasons](https://meta.discourse.org/t/spooky-tracking-happenings-ghost/61255/5) that’s not possible. My new thought is to move away from having a single tab which does all that, and adding a new ‘my categories’ value to this drop-down: ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/2/6/26439d3bd6b10ac04ec8fdf1a00a45deefa9d5e6.png) This allows the existing UX to be followed: the current value of the drop-down filters what appears in the tabs following: On the _Reps category_, the Latest tab shows the latest topics from the _Reps category_, the New tab shows new topics in the _Reps category_, and so on. On _all categories_ the Categories tab shows _all categories_, the Latest tab shows the latest topics from _all categories_, the New tab shows new topics in _all categories_, and so on. And, similarly, on _my categories_, the Categories tab would show _my categories_, the Latest tab would show the latest topics from _my categories_, the New tab would show new topics in _my categories_, and so on. > [@Rob\_Nicholson](#): > > I don’t want them in my main inbox as that’s more higher priority stuff. I guess what I’m saying here is that this very useful idea of rules/separate folders mentality doesn’t work in the much flater Discourse “Latest” and “Unread” views. Is there a solution here? I think the solution here is a combination of Watching the higher priority stuff, Tracking the lower priority stuff, and having the ability to receive emails for both (where currently you only get emailed for stuff that’s Watched). > [@Rob\_Nicholson](#): > > They are going to switch off immediately as they won’t be able to see the wood for the trees. > > My suggestion was that when a member is added to Discourse as part of a branch migration is that they only see two categories by default: the welcome category and the branch category (or probably sub-category). With the ‘my categories’ drop-down idea, my thought would be logged in users would, if subscribed to a category, see ‘my categories’ by default where they, and a logged out user, see ‘all categories’ by default now. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-creep-and-information-overload/62493)._