# Confusing user experience of pinning posts in subcategories

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/confusing-user-experience-of-pinning-posts-in-subcategories/221239>\
**Category:** UX\
**Created:** [March 17, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/confusing-user-experience-of-pinning-posts-in-subcategories/221239 "2022-03-17T14:54:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![Alex\_Larkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/alex_larkin/32/253361_2.png) [@Alex\_Larkin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Alex_Larkin)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/confusing-user-experience-of-pinning-posts-in-subcategories/221239/1 "2022-03-17T14:54:07Z")

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I just had a wonderful first interaction on Discourse Meta:

> [@Pinned posts not staying on top in one category](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pinned-posts-not-staying-on-top-in-one-category/221222):
>
> Hello, In the [Language Forge](https://community.software.sil.org/c/language-forge/20) category of the [SIL Language Software Community](https://community.software.sil.org/) Discourse site, pinned posts are not staying on top. Currently they seem to be acting like regular posts, getting knocked down the list as other posts are created and commented on. This, despite the fact that the pin icon is clearly visible to the left of the topic title. The order is the same whether I am logged in or viewing in incognito mode. In other categories, they always stay on top regardless of whe…

I was able to resolve my issue of my pinned posts not staying on the top, by taking the topics out of the subcategory I had placed them in. I did not find this behavior to be intuitive. At first I asked myself, “Why would placing a topic in a subcategory make the pins not stay on top?”

I did some experimenting and found that when looking only at that topic’s subcategory, then it would indeed stay at top. I imagine there are use cases where admins only want a post to be pinned to the top in its specified subcategory.

But even so, the user admin experience of pinning a post but not having it go to the top was confusing.

I looked more closely at the Pinning dialogue and realized that I had missed a clue:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/3/d/3de3a1f75305f76cdb80e6ca8fafc1a8ed1b7bd1.png)

For topics in subcategories, maybe after the highlighted line, it could say something like:  
“This topic will only be pinned to the top when viewing this subcategory.”

Likewise, if an admin tries to move a pinned topic to a subcategory, perhaps there could be a warning that appears, saying, “This topic will now only be pinned to the top when viewing the subcategory [subcategory name]”.

Likewise, maybe there could be a different pin icon for topics in subcategories. Perhaps, a smaller pin, or some other variation.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

That said, I would like to put in a word of thanks to the Discourse Meta community that has given me a very positive first experience, and to the Discourse developers, that have created such a marvelous platform for community discussions. Thank you.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/confusing-user-experience-of-pinning-posts-in-subcategories/221239)._