# Category Ordering: Fixed AND activity based ordering
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-ordering-fixed-and-activity-based-ordering/21720
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [October 31, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-ordering-fixed-and-activity-based-ordering/21720 "2014-10-31T19:33:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@robreed](https://meta.discourse.org/u/robreed)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-ordering-fixed-and-activity-based-ordering/21720/1 "2014-10-31T19:33:39Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Organizing categories so they are always in the same order](https://meta.discourse.org/t/organizing-categories-so-they-are-always-in-the-same-order/8539)
I’m just starting to dig into Discourse. I was fortunate to be able to import a forum with thousands of discussions which seems to be enough to get a pretty quick sense of what immediately seems great and maybe not so great about Discourse and its defaults. (Of course it’s also a lot to wade through.)
I’ve read several discussions here about category ordering. I see the pros and cons of both fixed and activity based ordering. I’m wondering if it’s worth thinking about this being something that can be set on a category by category basis.
Rather than go on and on, let me give you a concrete use case.
I’d like to stick to activity based ordering for something like a landing page. But I also run a ‘book club’ through my forum. We’ll pick a technical book (usually web development or design) and read through it together, 10 or so pages a day, and then use the forum to discuss the reading. (It takes about a month to get through a book and isn’t a big drain on anyone’s time. ) I’ll create a category for the book and then discussions for each section of reading, staying just ahead of the pace of the group, so that when it’s time for discussion about a reading there’s already a place for it. For this kind of thing there is a strict ordering (Chapter 1 - Reading 1, Chap 1 - Reading 2, and so on), and it can be disorienting to have them jump around.
So there’s one forum but it’s being utilized in a couple of different ways. In addition to the book club it serves as a community forum for a blogging platform (though I prefer to call it a personal publishing platform) that maintain.
As I imagine it there would be a global default, and each new category would take on that ordering. But it could be overridden on a per category basis. In my case the default would be the activity ordering but for the book club, the category ordering would be fixed.
Seems like a way to allow for some customization and flexibility without adding to the complexity of the UI (in the way that adding a lot of structure does).
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### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2014, 11:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-ordering-fixed-and-activity-based-ordering/21720/2 "2014-11-02T23:37:45Z")
For Discourse, it might make more sense to do this:
* * *
A single “Book club readings” category
One topic per chapter (or less), with modposts as barrier markers, linked from the first post for easy jumping
One more topic for the announcement & wrap-up, each
All of these linked from a pinned index topic
Any extra topics aggressively merged into the canonical one
* * *
Of course, adapt to your needs, but I think that could work well.
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### Author:  [@robreed](https://meta.discourse.org/u/robreed)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-ordering-fixed-and-activity-based-ordering/21720/3 "2014-11-03T21:37:45Z")
I’ll give this approach a try. This kind of usage question can be tough to sort out. Thanks for taking the time to give it some thought. It’s much appreciated.
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### Author:  [@chapoi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chapoi)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2025, 11:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-ordering-fixed-and-activity-based-ordering/21720/4 "2025-12-04T11:32:48Z")