How to install plugins without using a third-party host? — Willy sought a way to deploy plugins locally without relying on GitHub, sparking debate about version control necessity. RGJ and Merefield argued the benefits of source control, while Satonotdead raised concerns about GitHub’s history of takedowns and suggested Codeberg as an alternative. read more
Mail jobs are failing — Josip_Meštrović reported Sidekiq errors with Nokogiri when sending emails. Awesomerobot identified the culprit as an a:visited pseudo-selector in /admin/customize/email_style/css, resolving the four-day headache. read more
Avatars take a long time to load after moving to S3-compatible R2 — David_Ghost faced slow avatar loading after migrating to Cloudflare R2. Lilly guided him through checking Sidekiq queues and the avatar_proxy logs, suspecting a missing CDN remap. read more
#Announcements
Introducing a new “Post Type” Composer actions dropdown — Gormus noted that the “Toggle post voting” option appears even when the category is not an “Ideas” type. Awesomerobot confirmed this is by design but provided a theme component hook to hide it per category. read more
Cut off “Dismiss ⌄” button — Canapin found an empty space between the label and chevron on all themes. Chapoi explained it’s an intentional effect that modernisation changes may have broken and will fix. read more
Problème d’affiche dans le topic depuis la dernière mise à jour — Gilles and Newbit1337 reported broken buttons on Foundation theme after update. Chapoi traced it to a missing modernisation toggle and submitted a fix. read more
Text, in the topic subscription control context menu, is blurred — Rokejulianlockhart observed blurred text in Firefox Nightly but not in safe mode. Awesomerobot suspects a custom font conflict. read more
FIX: Word limit shouldn’t break IME composition — Small-Lovely-Cat bumped a stale PR fixing word limit issues for IME users. Sam prioritised it, and Nat merged the contribution. read more
FIX: Boosts in reviewables should link to posts rather than topics — Small-Lovely-Cat submitted a PR to direct reviewable boost links to specific posts instead of the topic. Zogstrip from the team merged it. read more
#Data & reporting
AI Translation Progress Graph — LotusJeff found the backfill progress graph inaccurate and cached. Falco explained the two‑step translation process and agreed the caching hides locale detection progress, promising improvements. read more
Nested replies broken? — Paul_King reported that enabling nested replies caused replies to vanish or appear in wrong topics. Markvanlan and Falco suggested updating, while Chapoi noted the feature is changing fast. read more
How to make a banner post — Jonathan5 couldn’t find the “make banner topic” option. Awesomerobot revealed the restriction: banner topics cannot be in categories with group permissions. Recategorising restored it. read more
How to use internal AI endpoints? — Satonotdead struggled to connect Discourse AI to a self‑hosted LLM. Falco advised using the domain name in DISCOURSE_ALLOWED_INTERNAL_HOSTS instead of an IP. read more
#Plugin
Dumbcourse – Old‑browser friendly UI at /dumb — Satonotdead revived interest in this accessibility plugin. Ars18 confirmed it’s still active and merged into their master plugin, but the standalone repo remains available. read more
Discourse Translator — Awesomerobot recommended switching to Discourse AI for automatic translation, noting AI models can be cheaper than self‑hosted LibreTranslate. NateDhaliwal suggested self‑hosted models via Ollama for further cost reduction. read more
I’m tracking down the world’s best community builders. Here’s what I’ve learned so far… — Jawestenberg shared a personal blog post about the loneliness of community building and the importance of NPS for ROI. read more
Falco explained the translation progress page caching in AI translation graph, recommended updating Discourse for nested replies in nested replies broken, provided domain‑based internal host configuration in AI endpoints, confirmed Android share target works in PWA sharing, and moved a SEO feature request to feature voting in Googlebot view.
Yesterday’s most heated debate was about plugin installation without GitHub – proving that even Discourse users can’t escape the version control tug‑of‑war!
We’ve curated the most noteworthy discussions from the past day, grouped by category and linked for your browsing pleasure.
#self-hosting
Willy ignited a lively debate by asking how to install plugins without relying on a third-party host like GitHub. Many community members – Chapoi, Merefield, RGJ, Lilly, Satonotdead, Stephen, Heliosurge – chimed in with advice, ranging from using theme components to self-hosted Git alternatives. The thread eventually turned into a broader discussion about the necessity of version control for even the smallest plugins, with RGJ arguing it’s “less than one minute of work” to set up a GitHub repo. Despite the frustration on both sides, the thread remained constructive. read more
Miednr reported a strange bug where anonymous visitors are redirected to the login page when categories is the first entry in top menu. Zogstrip couldn’t reproduce it initially, and Nat asked for HTTP status headers. Miednr confirmed it persists even in safe mode with plugins disabled, but a workaround (putting latest first) works. The team is still investigating. read more
RGJ discovered and reported that the “New Topic” button is not responsive when resizing the browser window – text appears/disappears incorrectly until a refresh. Awesomerobot confirmed the bug and submitted a quick fix that should land soon. read more
Ted pointed out that the “Dismiss ⌄” button on some themes is cut off, which Chapoi acknowledged was an intended design effect that may have been broken by recent modernisation changes. A fix is planned when time allows. read more
Paul_King encountered broken nested replies with emails, and after troubleshooting with Falco and Chapoi, updating his instance resolved the issue. The update process itself briefly broke the site due to an old mysql-dep.template.yml reference – a line that had worked for years suddenly caused a failure, but removing it fixed everything. read more
Gilles asked why Ask Discourse has become less performant lately. Nat responded that the underlying model was recently switched to a new local hosted DeepSeek v4 flash, and they will do a quick check. read more
Small-Lovely-Cat contributed a fix for boosts in reviewables – previously, reported boosts linked to topics rather than the specific post, making them hard to find. Their PR was merged by @zogstrip. read more
RGJ reported that events from unlisted topics still appear on the calendar, visible to everyone even though the topic is hidden. The expected behaviour is that unlisted topics should not show their events. read more
#feature
Jagster wondered how to force English for unsupported languages when the Content Localization setting is used with a non-English default locale. Falco and Nat explained that there is currently no fallback locale option; the site default locale dictates the fallback, so setting the default to en is the only way. read more
#announcements
Davidb announced a new reactions popup in chat, allowing users to see who reacted to a message by hovering (desktop) or long-pressing (mobile). The feature is experimental and can be enabled via the Upcoming changes admin page. read more
#data-reporting
LotusJeff shared SQL queries for building an AI Translation Progress Graph in the Data Explorer, detailing how to count translated vs eligible topics and posts. Nat thanked them and promised to improve the dashboard soon. read more
#site-feedback
The collaborative content gardening hub experiment continues. NateDhaliwal suggested adding #chat and #reactions tags to the new reactions announcement, which Davidb did. The topic is a meta-level discussion about curating meta itself. read more
#plugin
In the Discourse Reactions plugin topic, Jrgong +1’d a request to allow users to click an already-given reaction to “join in” (like Slack/Discord), noting that Discourse UI/UX often deviates from established web standards. read more
Ted reflected on a blog post about community builders feeling lonely, praising the line “People come for the skills and stay for the feeling that they made the best decision of their lives.” He shared that this mirrors his own experience with the Ruby community. read more
(Note: We aimed for 15 topics but included 13 to avoid forcing less relevant ones – quality over quantity!)
The Discourse team was active across many discussions yesterday. Here’s a summary of their contributions, with links to the relevant topics.
Nat engaged in several conversations: he noted that Ask Discourse performance may be due to a model change and promised a check (topic); provided guidance on fallback locales and Content Localization settings (topic); thanked LotusJeff for translation SQL queries and promised improvements (topic); and helped troubleshoot a bug where plugins triggered multiple bot replies in a Chinese-language support topic (topic). He also joined the discussion on multi-language preferences and suggested per-post toggles (topic).
Awesomerobot contributed a fix for the unresponsive “New Topic” button (topic), confirmed the Theme Creator 500 error (topic), and proposed a new UI for content language preferences replacing the old single setting (topic).
Chapoi provided instructions on updating Discourse to fix nested replies (topic) and acknowledged the cut-off dismiss button as a known design issue (topic). He also gently reminded the community to avoid ridiculing users for their preferences in the plugin installation thread (topic).
Davidb announced the new chat reactions popup experimental feature (topic) and updated the tagging for that announcement in the gardening hub (topic).
Zogstrip merged a PR for boosts in reviewables (topic), helped debug the anonymous login redirect bug (topic), and confirmed a fix for a report description bug in another topic (topic).
Sam confirmed that Shared Edits can now be enabled for non-TL4 members, with a related PR linked (topic).
Rishabh helped a site get added back to Discourse Discover after it became public (topic).
Keegan noted a fix for the full name requirement bug that had been merged earlier (topic).
Martin submitted a fix for the unified new view in the topic list (topic).
From heated debates about Git dependency to the arrival of snazzy new chat reactions – yesterday proved that even the smallest plugin can spark a fiery discussion, while a simple popup can brighten everyone’s day.
Is it possible to disable Discourse updates? – Willy raised concerns that his self‑hosted forum “updates automatically without permission,” breaking custom plugins. Falco clarified that Discourse has no automatic update feature, and that running ./launcher rebuild app triggers an update. A deeper discussion ensued about pinning Discourse to a specific commit hash using the version: parameter in app.yml. Moin and Mcwumbly explained that you can use any branch, tag, or commit hash, but warned against pinning in production due to missed security patches. read more
How to install plugins without using a third-party host? – The conversation continued from earlier days. Heliosurge and NateDhaliwal suggested using theme components instead of plugins for simple additions like a homepage button, pointing out that components can be uploaded as ZIP files. Chapoi stepped in to de‑escalate when the thread turned aggressive, reminding everyone to stay constructive. Falco also noted that you can mount a host folder into the container via app.yml volume support. read more
Ask discourse moins performant – French‑speaking user Gilles reported that Ask Discourse has become “less performant” and “turns in circles” with answers. Nat explained that the backend was recently switched to the locally‑hosted DeepSeek v4 flash model for speed and better grounding in Meta’s documentation. Falco added that Ask Discourse is designed for general troubleshooting, not development; for coding tasks he recommended using dv (Discourse Vibe). read more
Why topics translate faster than posts – LotusJeff observed that topic translations cover 7 months while posts only cover 20 days. Falco explained that both translation batches process at similar rates, but topics (typically shorter) finish quicker. He suggested adjusting the max age or backfill rate site settings to let posts catch up. read more
#Feature
Ability to configure where videos uploaded – Prempavee, on a Pro plan, wanted to offload video uploads to an external service like Mux without upgrading. Moin pointed to the Vimeo/YouTube upload theme component and Arkshine detailed ongoing work to secure it (e.g., dealing with Vimeo’s partnership requirements and token safety). Since custom plugins aren’t allowed on the Pro plan, Arkshine promised to explore other solutions. read more
#Announcements
Current Projects – June 2026 – Rishabh published the monthly newsletter. Recently finished items include: bringing the GIFs component into core, the unified new topic list, nested replies, and a new layout/blocks system for themes. Work in progress covers improvements to reporting/analytics, the Events plugin, the Free plan, and a new “Workflows” automation system. read more
New Reactions Popup in Chat – Davidb announced an experimental popup that shows the list of users who reacted to a chat message when hovering (desktop) or long‑pressing (mobile). Admins can enable it via the “Upcoming changes” page. The new feature is designed to replace the limited tooltip with a richer, filterable panel. read more
Bug? Visitors can’t access forum index – Miednr reported that setting categories as the first entry in top menu redirects anonymous visitors to the login page on /, while /categories and /latest work fine. Nat and Zogstrip attempted to reproduce, and after troubleshooting, Miednr discovered the issue correlated with the OpenID Connect plugin. Even after disabling it, the problem reappeared; a temporary fix was to “update” admin settings without changes. read more
Events from unlisted topics show on calendar – RGJ reported that events created in unlisted topics still appear on the calendar. Zogstrip confirmed the bug and provided a fix via PR #41194. The fix was also cross‑linked to an older related topic. read more
#Community Building
Forums that forbid AI content… How’s it going? – Robbie.Morrison shared his harrowing experience on Wikipedia, where strict anti‑AI policies led to false accusations and a “reverse burden of proof.” He linked to an AskHistorians Reddit discussion that also struggles with governance. RGJ provided articles about AI detectors being biased against non‑native English writers, and One1 cautioned that such policies can unfairly penalize careful writers. read more
Upcoming events – unlisted is invisible in category but visible in Upcoming Events – Moin linked this older report to the recently fixed events from unlisted topics bug, noting the same underlying issue. read more
在插件中如何配置数组对象？使用 json_schema? type: objects ？ – Singi2016cn encountered a rendering issue with the type: category JSON schema validator. Awesomerobot confirmed that type: categories works correctly and suggested using validations: { max: 1 } to limit to a single selection. The discussion helped clarify schema usage for plugin developers. read more
Yesterday’s most popular question was “Is it possible to disable Discourse updates?” — turns out you can pin a commit hash, but you’ll also pin yourself to a world of manual security patches. Choose wisely!
