Daily Summary (1pm UTC)

News and Events Forum summaries
888

Today on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

Over the past 24 hours, the community generated 120 new posts across 52 topics, and received 224 likes.

Top User Posts Likes
Lindsey 2 28
Moin 10 21
Pmusaraj 7 15
Chapoi 11 14
Awesomerobot 4 14
Oniel 1 14
Akanora 6 12
Merefield 5 12
Darkpixlz 4 10
One1 8 9

Interesting Topics

#Announcements

  • Lindsey revealed the new Workflows feature — a visual automation builder with triggers, conditions, actions, and utilities, available on Business and Enterprise plans. Awesomerobot confirmed it will eventually replace the Automations plugin, while RGJ shared positive hands‑on experience after four weeks of use. read more

  • Rishabh announced the new login‑via‑email‑code flow, a passwordless alternative that stays on the same page. Dfabulich discussed the benefits of nudging users toward passkeys, while Don requested the ability to change the display name during registration. Pmusaraj explained how this approach avoids in‑app browser pitfalls. read more

  • The redesigned admin dashboard (from #better‑insights) continues to generate discussion. One1 objected to the removal of version info from the main dashboard, prompting a conversation with Chapoi and Mcwumbly about future customisability. Ed_S reminded the team not to forget the “Morlocks” who run the system. read more

  • GIFs are moving to Discourse core — Martin clarified the migration approach for hosted customers, while Lilly pointed out that the free Giphy API still works well for self‑hosters. read more

#Theme

  • Oniel released Oniel’s Flat Theme, a modern, responsive theme focused on clarity and dense information. Pmusaraj praised the sharp look and suggested adding more mobile screenshots. read more

#Self‑hosting

bug

  • Akanora found that the avatar selector modal crashes with t.split is not a function when “selectable avatars” is enabled but empty. Pmusaraj traced the cause and submitted a pull request to handle the edge case gracefully. read more

  • Overgrow identified a bug in the AI bot: clicking “Retry” in public topics creates a duplicate reply instead of regenerating. The root cause is that the non‑streaming path ignores the existing_reply_post parameter. read more

#Plugin

Support

ux

#Feature

Activity by the Team Group

Team members were highly active across multiple areas. Pmusaraj provided debugging help on the avatar selector crash, explained the benefits of email‑code login, praised the new Flat Theme, and weighed in on Discourse ID goals. Chapoi responded to feedback on the dashboard redesign, suggested a migration fix, fixed the bookmark time‑picker layout, resolved a drag‑and‑drop issue in custom sidebar sections, improved the “First Reaction” badge description, approved a feature for deleting pending posts, and tagged Renato on the iOS composer bug. Awesomerobot announced that Workflows will replace Automations, fixed the bookmark time‑picker, and shared thoughts on AI‑content detection. Lindsey kicked off the Workflows preview and authored the official documentation. Martin clarified the GIFs migration strategy and addressed a logging error in the upcoming‑changes problem check. Mcwumbly supported the group‑exclusion filter request and discussed future customisability of the admin dashboard. David helped a user clear the theme cache after a broken upgrade. Tobiaseigen promoted an online community‑building workshop and revisited the status of bootstrap mode.

:tada: With a brand new Workflows feature, a fresh flat theme, and robot‑like precision in squashing bugs, yesterday showed that Discourse is still the most community‑driven platform around—puppies everywhere are wagging their tails in approval!

889

Today on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

In the last 24 hours, the meta community has been buzzing with 125 new posts, spread across 48 new topics, and 183 likes were given to the posts returned.

Top Users by Likes & Posts:

Interesting Topics

#Feature: Make PDF previews actually readable

Canapin opened a feature request to improve the readability of inline PDF previews, noting that the default size is too small and that toggling options is cumbersome. Moin pointed to a recent fix for PDF download behaviour, but Canapin clarified the core desire remains a fullscreen toggle. David confirmed that the fixing PR has now been merged. This topic also sparked further discussion on the Inline PDF Previews theme component where users reported new admin notices.

#Announcements: Introducing the admin category management page

Martin announced a new admin category management page (/admin/config/category-management) that displays all categories with type, visibility, and quick settings. Users Gormus requested drag-and-drop sorting and a “create category” button directly from the page. Moin noted that subcategories can also be added via the sidebar.

#Self-hosting: After the update, there was an error and the forum is not functioning properly

Yuki_Sui reported critical post-update errors involving missing migrations (e.g., external_plugin_imports and source column). NateDhaliwal and Chapoi advised a rebuild or manual migration run (./launcher run app bundle exec rake db:migrate). The user confirmed that the combined suggestions resolved the issue.

Support What theme does the discourse official community use?

Hsin_Dr asked about the theme powering meta.discourse.org. Darkpixlz explained it is a private “Meta Branded” theme, not public, and directed the user to browse Customization > Theme for alternatives.

#Plugin: Discourse Chat Bridge (Telegram)

Dr460nf1r3 forked and fixed the Telegram bridge plugin, and after Merefield’s suggestion, subsequently opened a PR to the main repo.

#Blog: Introducing the Discourse Free Plan

A blog post by System announced the new Discourse Free Plan – $0 with unlimited members, chat, and frictionless experience. Generated community discussion.

#Announcements: Better insights into your community with the redesigned admin dashboard

The ongoing dashboard redesign discussion continued with Ed_S and One1 arguing that critical system information (like version) should remain front and centre, not hidden behind an extra click. Chapoi defended the new dedicated page, and Ed_S suggested a future preference option for sysadmin vs. community manager landing pages.

#Bug: The popup menu for quoting text is unresponsive on Android

Merefield’s bug report caught attention from Tannerabread, who suspects their iOS fix may have caused a regression on Android. Tannerabread is investigating and a patch was already merged for a related iOS freeze issue.

#Bug: AI bot “Retry” creates a duplicate reply instead of regenerating, in public (non-PM) topics

Overgrow filed a detailed report identifying that the AI Bot’s “Retry” action in public topics appends a new post instead of regenerating the original, due to a missing existing_reply_post handling in the non-streaming branch. Falco submitted a fix.

#Theme component: Topic List Previews (TLP)

Merefield announced optimisations for TLP, removing the imagesLoaded library and fixing background colour jank. The sidecar plugin has moved to a private repo for sponsors (≥$7/month).

#Feature: Allow to exclude groups in /filter

Mcwumbly supported a feature request to exclude groups in the /filter interface. Awesomerobot confirmed work is underway and linked to a PR.

#Community Building: Anyone else seeing a drastic drop in community activity for Support forums?

In a discussion about declining support forum activity, Nicolsdennis suggested leveraging AI bots for initial triage, while Don proposed making forums login-only to protect content from AI scrapers and foster exclusive spaces.

#SSO: Connect User logins from my Wix site for my Discourse forum

Gid sought help integrating Wix member logins with Discourse SSO, but was on the free plan which only supports Discourse ID. Moin and Pfaffman explained the plan limitations and that Wix SSO requires an enterprise solution. Gid later asked about self-hosting, and Moin provided a detailed overview of costs, benefits, and technical requirements.

Support Has something changed with pasting html into the composer?

One1 reported that pasting text from certain websites now includes unwanted <span lang="..."> tags. Renato explained that a recent change had been made, and they would investigate further. This also led to a separate follow-up from One1 and Delightful asking how to customise paste handling for their scripture forum.

#Development: Deprecating .js.es6 and .hbs file extensions in themes and plugins

David updated two announcements that .js.es6 and .hbs files will trigger admin warnings now, with support being removed during the 2026.8.0-latest cycle.

Activity by the Team Group

The Discourse team has been highly active, addressing bugs, merging features, and providing support:

As yesterday drew to a close, we learned that even AI bots can accidentally create a flood of duplicate replies, reminding us that sometimes the best way to move forward is to regenerate, not repeat. Happy community building! :paw_prints:

890

Today on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

In the last 24 hours, 107 new posts were created across 43 new topics, sparking lively debate and collaboration. The community awarded 187 likes across these contributions.

Top contributors by likes and posts:

Interesting Topics

Community Building

Anyone else seeing a drastic drop in community activity for Support forums?
The conversation continued with Nicolsdennis suggesting an active digital support agent, Don proposing login‑gating to block AI scrapers, and Awesomerobot cautioning that gating could hurt SEO and AI influence. Don later shared his experiment with AI‑friendly llms.txt files, Merefield argued that forums remain places for “trust, shared experience, and community,” and HAWK recommended re‑framing success metrics to measure reach rather than raw sign‑ups. A deep debate on the future of forum discoverability. read more

#self-hosting

Confused about Self Hosting
Newcomer Gid asked for clarification on VPS, managed hosting, and SSH requirements. Andrew_Rowe gave a thorough walkthrough of self‑hosting basics, Lilly explained the difference between Discourse‑hosted and self‑hosted plans, Darkpixlz advocated for running Discourse on personal hardware, and NateDhaliwal, Itsbhanusharma, and Ed_S discussed the security trade‑offs of port forwarding vs. Cloudflare Tunnels. A helpful primer for rookie admins. read more

#announcements

Introducing the admin category management page
Gormus praised the new overview page and requested drag‑and‑drop reordering and a “create new category” button directly from the page. Martin confirmed the button would be easy to add and promised to consider ordering. The PR is on GitHub. read more

Solved badges are now enabled by default for new communities
Lindsey announced that the four Solved badges are now enabled by default for new sites, with an opt‑in for existing communities via the Upcoming Changes panel. Bruce5051 and Ganncamp asked whether existing solutions would be backfilled—Davidb confirmed a daily badge grant job handles that. read more

Better insights into your community with the redesigned admin dashboard
One1 expressed frustration that critical version‑update info is now an extra click away. Chapoi acknowledged the feedback but said the change won’t be reversed immediately, and Ed_S suggested offering a preference to choose between sysadmin and community manager landing pages. read more

Small post actions no longer tracked or watched
Michelle_L asked if small actions still appear in engagement queries—Sam confirmed the data remains in the DB. Moin noted a possible interaction with “consider topics unread when closed” preference, and Zogstrip is working on a fix for an over‑reaching PR. read more

GIFs are moving to Discourse core!
Davidb addressed attribution concerns, adding the required Tenor attribution and removing a confusing option, while Martin promised a clearer warning for users. The PRs are now live. read more

sso

Connect User logins from my Wix site for my Discourse forum
NateDhaliwal pointed to affordable VPS options like Contabo, Pfaffman noted that Wix’s own pricing can be steep, and Lilly advised that complaining about Discourse hosting costs won’t yield exceptions—the software itself is free and open source. read more

ux

UX: Fix padding of pm small action in mobile view of horizon theme
Small-Lovely-Cat reported and submitted a CSS fix for a padding misalignment that hid the “x month later” label in PMs on mobile. Nat roped in designers, and Chapoi merged the PR. read more

#feature

Allow to exclude groups in /filter
Awesomerobot announced that the feature to exclude groups from topic filters has been merged and will be available in the next update. Andresfromsonar thanked the team for the quick turnaround. read more

Support

Select font while creating a topic
Sorokin asked about choosing fonts in the composer. Darkpixlz provided a theme‑component CSS snippet for wrapping text in custom fonts, and explained how to build a dropdown menu using JavaScript. read more

Has something changed with pasting html into the composer?
One1 noticed that <span lang="..."> tags now appear when pasting text. Zogstrip asked for the source, Renato investigated and merged an improvement to strip Word‑style spans, though lang attributes are being treated as valid inline HTML. read more

#theme-component

Inline PDF Previews
Multiple posts discussed a deprecation warning and a fix: Tobiaseigen noted the admin notice and temporarily disabled the component, Zogstrip merged a PR to resolve the issue, and Shortmort37 shared a personal fork that adds PDF.js rendering and mobile support. read more

bug

Unable to activate account on try.discourse.org using email+password credentials
Per1234 reported that account activation emails weren’t being sent because outgoing mail was disabled for non‑staff. HAWK fixed the daily restore and re‑enabled mail. read more

3 rejects HTTP 202 breaking IMDB oneboxes
Dax identified that IMDB now returns HTTP 202 (Accepted) instead of 200, causing onebox failures. After investigation, Zogstrip determined that IMDB is behind a WAF that blocks scraping, so a PR improves the error message instead. read more

Activity by the Team Group

The Discourse team was highly active yesterday, contributing to numerous discussions and fixes:

  • Awesomerobot joined the community activity debate, warning against gating content for SEO/AI reasons (read more), and announced the merge of the “exclude groups in /filter” feature (read more).
  • Zogstrip fixed the PDF previews deprecation (read more), investigated the HTML paste issue (read more), made the upcoming‑events block respect subcategory filters (read more), addressed the small‑actions tracking regression (read more), fixed the vote limits notification bug (read more), the S3 multipart backup upload bug (read more), and the affiliate link rewriting gap (read more), as well as improving the IMDB onebox error message (read more).
  • Lindsey announced the Solved badges default enablement and answered backfill questions (read more).
  • Martin confirmed the category management page improvements (read more), fixed the upcoming changes problem check (read more), and implemented granular group permissions for theme components (read more).
  • Chapoi approved the padding fix for PMs on mobile (read more) and responded to feedback on the admin dashboard redesign (read more).
  • Nat helped with the custom sidebar links question (read more) and improved the manual localization UI (read more).
  • Renato investigated the HTML paste regression (read more) and fixed the missing image in chat review queue (read more).
  • Davidb handled attribution for GIFs in core (read more) and confirmed the backfill for Solved badges (read more), as well as the simpler email subject lines fix (read more).
  • Sam confirmed that small‑action data remains in the database for queries (read more).
  • HAWK offered strategic advice on measuring community ROI in the drop‑in‑activity thread (read more) and fixed the try.discourse.org email issue (read more), and also shared interest in an upcoming community workshop (read more).

With all that voting, gating, and font‑pasting, it seems like even Discourse needs a coffee‑shop break—maybe next time Don will bring his own plugin to brew it!

891

Today on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

Interesting Topics

#Self-hosting

  • Andrew_Rowe, Lilly, Darkpixlz, and others helped a confused new admin understand the differences between self‑hosting, managed hosting, and Discourse’s own plans. Lilly gave a thorough breakdown of SSH, VPS, and the real costs of running your own server, while Darkpixlz shared tips on hardware self‑hosting and security. Read the full discussion.

#Community Building

  • HAWK and Don debated the impact of AI on support forums and how to reframe success metrics. Don proposed making “Library” content discoverable while gating the “Coffee Shop” experience behind registration. See the conversation.

  • Don started a playful thread asking admins what advice they’d send back to their beginner selves. Jagster (translated) recommended the KISS principle, and Ban2zai shared his journey of over‑engineering plugins. Join in.

#Announcements

  • Keegan announced the redesigned invite modal for members and admins, now available as an upcoming change. The new flow offers a single‑step admin invite with automatic moderator status. Details here.

  • Zogstrip confirmed that a recent PR went too far in removing small post action tracking and is working on a fix in PR #41760. Topic link.

  • Martin implemented granular group‑based permissions for the anonymous/user login feature, and updated Lilly’s group sidebar menus component. See the PRs.

  • Lindsey announced that Topic Voting badges are now enabled by default for new communities, with an upcoming change for existing sites. Learn more.

Support

  • Jonathan5 asked how to ensure Discourse rebuild continues after a terminal session disconnects. Pfaffman and Merefield recommended tmux, and NateDhaliwal shared his blog guide. Check the tips.

  • Boubou wanted custom sidebar links; Nat and Lilly provided instructions for adding custom sections and using the group sidebar menus theme component. Resolved.

  • Mcdanlj reported that the real IP from a reverse proxy is no longer recognized after a recent Discourse change. Pfaffman and Chapoi pointed to the new set_real_ip_from approach and a helpful meta thread. Fix details.

  • One1 reported that quoted text breaks due to curly quote conversion in the DuckDuckGo browser. Chapoi confirmed it’s a browser‑level autocorrect issue, and Moin linked a similar report. Workaround.

ux

#Hosted Customers

  • Falco introduced CDCK/MoM, the new built‑in LLM for hosted sites, which routes requests to a mixture of open‑weight models (Qwen 3.6, DeepSeek 4 Flash) on Discourse’s own infrastructure. Full explanation.

#Plugin

  • Falco also announced major updates to the Resenha plugin, adding optional SFU support via LiveKit, device pickers, and room mentionability. See the update.

#Feature

  • Spacebom shared a new AGPL plugin that allows adding noindex to entire categories and their topics. Download from GitHub.

  • Fb.Xisi requested per‑category configuration of the “accept all solutions” groups. Mcwumbly asked for more context on the use case. Discuss.

General

  • FinIce and Falco compared the largest Discourse topics, with Falco pointing to a 71k‑post thread on the Straight Dope boards. Fun read.

bug

  • AkarinLiu reported that Discourse stops responding after integrating the DeepSeek API. Falco clarified that only Google AI Studio is currently supported for embeddings, not Vertex AI. Troubleshooting.

  • Ethsim2 found a regression where the default composition mode (set to Markdown) is ignored between two recent Discourse builds. Moin suggested checking browser‑stored preferences. Report.

  • Jagster noticed “Invalid version list” warnings for several themes. Elmuerte explained the .discourse-compatibility file, and David contributed a PR to suppress warnings for comment‑only files. Resolution.

Activity by the Team Group

With 46 topics and 126 posts, the community kept busy—even if some had to wrestle with curly quotes, smart divs, and the eternal question of whether to self‑host or let Discourse do the heavy lifting.

892

Today on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

The past 24 hours have been bustling on meta.discourse.org with 92 new posts spread across 40 new topics, earning 134 likes in total.

The top contributors by likes and posts were:

Interesting Topics

#Community Building

Message from the future – A wonderfully imaginative topic started by Don asked: “If you could send a single message back to your time‑traveling self on the day you first logged into your Discourse dashboard, what would it be?” The thread quickly grew popular with 39 likes. Jagster (channeling a KISS philosophy) advised adding features only when needed, NateDhaliwal confessed “Read the documentation, Nate! Seriously.”, and Canapin playfully warned about future summer heatwaves and generative AI. Bruce5051 recommended hiring an expert. Read more →

#Self-hosting

Confused about Self Hosting – A long‑running discussion where Gid received thorough advice on VPS options and Docker installs. Lilly shared screenshots contrasting Hetzner with cheaper providers like Ionos, Traceymoko endorsed the 30‑minute official guide, and RGJ clarified that managed hosting providers (like Discourse.org and Communiteq) handle maintenance without sacrificing data ownership. Andrew_Rowe pointed out a 50% nonprofit discount. Read more →

#Self-hosting

Installing Discourse on a self hosted VPS. A process with FAQs – Gid, now committed to self‑hosting, opened a detailed step‑by‑step topic outlining every decision from VPS provider (Contabo vs Hetzner) to SMTP, DNS, and SSH keys. Darkpixlz, Lilly, and NateDhaliwal chimed in with practical warnings: stick to the beginner install guide, use a subdomain, and don’t overthink SSO yet. Lilly also gently corrected the use of Mentions. Read more →

#Self-hosting

Invalid version list in discourse themes – Jagster noticed logs full of “Invalid version list” warnings for several themes. Elmuerte explained that an empty .discourse-compatibility file causes the warning; it is usually harmless if the theme works. David then noted that Discourse now prefers the d-compat/* branch strategy and is suppressing warnings for comment‑only files. Read more →

#Announcements

Improving admin invites – The Discourse team shared a new admin‑invite flow that immediately grants moderator status on signup to speed up onboarding. Ondrej suggested adding a moderator invite option and provided a mockup. Rishabh explained the design goal, Awesomerobot liked the mockup and proposed adding an educational tooltip, and Mcwumbly agreed. Read more →

#Announcements

Granular group‑based permissions for anonymous and logged in users – Martin contributed a PR implementing disallowed_groups for the anonymous theme component, building on earlier work. Lilly thanked him and noted the improvement for targeting specific groups. The feature is moving toward per‑category granularity. Read more →

#Feature

data‑theme‑toc=“true” should be placed at the top of a post in its own paragraph – One1 reported that when a user inserts the <div data-theme-toc="true"> code, subsequent text is not parsed correctly unless there is a blank line after the div. He proposed that the composer’s “+” button should insert the code at the very top of the post with an automatic blank line. Chapoi moved the suggestion to the feature category and agreed it would be a nice quality‑of‑life improvement. Read more →

#Feature

Configure “Accept all solutions allowed groups” per category – Fb.Xisi requested that the “Accept all solutions” setting be configurable per category, rather than only globally. Mcwumbly supported the idea, noting that the product is moving toward more per‑category settings, but cautioned about complexity and the need for global overrides. Read more →

#Theme component

Desktop to Mobile View Banner – Roi reported a deprecation notice for the .hbs extension after updating Discourse. David pointed out that Discourse no longer has separate desktop/mobile views, so the component is obsolete. Don marked it as end-of-life. Read more →

#Theme component

Change share icon by OS – Roi thanked Don for fixing a deprecation issue that had been causing a console warning. The component now works cleanly again. Read more →

#Developer Guides

Pinning plugin and theme versions for older Discourse installs (d‑compat branches) – Elmuerte asked for clarification on the branch‑based compatibility strategy: when a plugin supports multiple Discourse versions, does the system fall back to main if no specific branch exists? David confirmed yes, and that the workflow can be automated with the provided skeleton. Read more →

Support

Text after div tags does not get rendered properly – One1 discovered that markdown following a <div> is not rendered unless a blank line separates them. Chapoi explained it is standard CommonMark behaviour (HTML block type 6). The root cause was a user inserting the ToC div without a trailing blank line, leading to the feature request above. Read more →

bug

FIX: Boosts can be flagged by multiple users – Small-Lovely-Cat submitted a PR to the discourse-boosts plugin that removes a check preventing the same boost from being flagged by more than one user. Previously, a user trying to flag an already flagged boost would see a confusing “You have already flagged this boost” error. Read more →

bug

FIX: Prevent resurrection of approved queued reviewables when reusing flagged reviewables for the same target – Also by Small-Lovely-Cat, this patch prevents a seemingly approved topic from being resurrected in the review queue when a new flag is filed on the same post. Without the fix, the prior “approved” reviewable would switch back to “pending”, creating two contradictory queue entries. Read more →

bug

Deleted posts still show full content when translation is enabled – Asa flagged a privacy issue: when a post is deleted by its author, the full translated text remains visible to anyone viewing the topic with the translation feature (Discourse AI) active. Only after switching back to the original language does the “post deleted by author” placeholder appear. This could be a serious data‑leak vector. Read more →

Activity by the Team Group

Yesterday’s activity saw a delightful time‑travel advice thread where users imagined sending messages to their past selves, proving that even in the future we still need reminders to read the documentation. :rocket:

893

Today on meta.discourse.org…

Key Stats

Over the past 24 hours, the community produced 46 new posts across 27 new topics, with 38 likes given. The most engaged users were:

Interesting Topics

#Self-hosting

  • Lilly provided a step‑by‑step walkthrough for Gid on installing Discourse on a VPS, covering domain selection, SMTP via Hostinger, and the pitfalls of rushing into SSO integration. NateDhaliwal and Ed_S chimed in with advice on VPS sizing and the critical need for off‑site backups. Read more

#Theme component

  • The Desktop to Mobile View Banner component was marked end-of-life by David after Discourse deprecated separate mobile views; Don confirmed the decision. Roi promptly removed it from his site. Read more

  • Don fixed a bug in the Change share icon by OS component, and Roi confirmed the deprecation notification vanished. Read more

  • Optional Mobile Title Header received a deprecation notice, which David addressed with a pull request. Read more

  • Lilly pushed updates to the Group Sidebar Menus component following core changes for granular group permissions. Read more

  • Nathank reported an enhancement for subcategory config in Right Sidebar Blocks, which Zogstrip fixed. Read more

  • Several other theme components – Clickable Social Icon Links and Show Both OP and Last Reply on Mobile – showed deprecation warnings, with users like Roi asking maintainers for updates. Read more and more

bug

  • Asa discovered a privacy issue: deleted posts still appear in full when translation (Discourse AI) is enabled, because the cached translation ignores the deletion state. Steps to reproduce were provided. Read more

  • Small-Lovely-Cat submitted a fix for the Boosts plugin, preventing confusing “already flagged” errors by allowing multiple users to flag a boost. Read more

  • Jagster reported that numerical tags (e.g., year “2026”) fail when a tag with the same ID already exists, causing unexpected tag selection. Read more

  • A Chinese‑language topic described how certain punctuation breaks Markdown bold rendering; Renato explained this is expected behavior. Read more

Support

  • A user on the Free Plan (User486) reported being unable to disable read‑only mode, with the button reverting on reload. Darkpixlz suggested the site may have been flagged for inactivity or ToS violations. Read more

  • After an upgrade, Uckelman encountered 500 errors caused by an invalid IP‑address format when using Caddy as a reverse‑proxy. The solution was adding header_up X-Real-IP. Read more

  • Lou investigated the Notify about queued posts after setting and found that category moderators are not notified, only site moderators. Read more

#Plugin

  • Resenha – Nicolsdennis welcomed the addition of LiveKit SFU support, allowing him to retire his custom fork, and asked about accepting PRs. Read more

  • Allow PM to Staff – after a temporary break, Roi confirmed the plugin is working again thanks to a recent fix. Read more

  • Turn Based Board Game – Fearlessfrog released v0.4 with rebalanced reinforcement and opening deployment rules, advising players to finish existing games before updating. Read more

development

  • Philh explored API access to authoring‑limit site settings and discovered that /site/settings.json and /site.json require admin‑level keys; RGJ clarified that certain settings are available to regular users and that granular scopes for these endpoints do not yet exist. Read more

#Announcements

  • The Granular group‑based permissions feature received a PR from Martin to add disallowed_groups support, which Lilly praised for its utility. Read more

  • The Easier account signup using email codes feature drew feedback from DomMcD, who noted it removes the name and username fields from the signup page, forcing users to set a username manually later. Read more

#Theme

  • Oniel shared his Flat Theme, receiving positive comments from SeizalHong who suggested improving readability on small screens. Oniel promised mobile improvements. Read more

Activity by the Team Group

  • David marked the Desktop to Mobile View Banner component as end-of-life after confirming it is no longer necessary, and fixed a deprecation notice in the Optional Mobile Title Header component. Read more and more

  • Don confirmed the end‑of‑life status for the mobile view banner and fixed a bug in the Change share icon by OS component. Read more and more

  • Sam reassured the community that Nat is reworking the AI caption subsystem and will add toggles to rebake captions, addressing the long‑standing request in the Quick welfare check on the AI caption bot topic. Read more

Yesterday’s flurry of deprecation notices and component fixes proved that even the most polished themes need a little maintenance now and then—but the community’s quick responses kept the wheels turning smoothly.

894

Today on meta.discourse.org…

A summary of the last 24 hours of activity on the Discourse meta forum.

Key Stats

  • New Posts: 50
  • New Topics: 22
  • Total Likes: 65

Top Users by Posts & Likes

User Posts Likes
Moin 6 14
Lilly 3 6
Don 2 6
Ed_S 2 6
Angus 2 3
Chapoi 2 3
Thadeus 2 3
Uckelman 2 3
Martin 2 2
NateDhaliwal 2 2

Interesting Topics

#Self-hosting

  • Installing Discourse on a self hosted VPS. A process with FAQs – Ed_S stressed the importance of regular, off-site backups for self-hosters, noting that hosting providers care little about your data. NateDhaliwal asked about snapshot frequency, and Ed_S argued that backups every two days with four retained is a reasonable balance. read more

#Announcements

  • Granular group-based permissions for anonymous and logged in users – Martin confirmed that the disallowed_groups setting has been merged and now works properly. Lilly encountered an issue where the anonymous_users group still appeared despite using disallowed_groups: "0|4" — Moin later clarified that the change had been temporarily disabled on test forums, and after re-enabling it worked as expected. read more

Marketplace

  • [RFP] Discourse UX Overhaul, Theme Customization & Plugin Audit – Thadeus posted a detailed request for proposals, seeking an experienced developer to revamp their forum’s UX, clean up categories, audit plugins, and improve the composer. Chapoi suggested enabling Rich Text Mode as an alternative to the default preview, while Merefield pointed to Nested Replies for better navigation. Several community members responded, including Pacharanero and Jahan_Gagan who sent private proposals. read more

  • Development Online Platform – Numun provided an update, asking interested parties to email proposals by 24 July 2026, with a decision expected next week. read more

Support

  • Are email notifications sent out for unlisted topics? – Richie asked whether Mentions in unlisted topics trigger emails. Moin confirmed that unlisting does not suppress notifications; mentions, quotes, and watching settings still send them, so a private category is needed for full silence. read more

  • Is there a simple way to not strip leading spaces and other formatting in a poem? – Pinetree1111 sought a user-friendly method to preserve spacing in poetry. Lilly suggested using &nbsp; HTML entities, Chapoi demonstrated backtick formatting with custom CSS, and Rdweb proposed the <pre> tag. The consensus leans toward the backtick approach as the simplest teachable method. read more

  • 500 Oops errors after upgrading – Uckelman encountered PG::InvalidTextRepresentation errors after an upgrade, traced to a missing X-Real-IP header when using Caddy reverse proxy. Adding header_up X-Real-IP {remote_host} to the Caddyfile resolved it. read more

bug

  • FIX: Boosts can’t be flagged by multiple users – Small-Lovely-Cat fixed a bug where boosts could not be flagged by more than one user. J.Jaffeux pointed out a title typo (“can” vs “can’t”), which was corrected. Zogstrip reviewed and merged the PR. read more

  • Why do numerical tags fail when ID exists – Jagster reported that creating a numerical tag (e.g. 2013) incorrectly resolves to another tag’s ID. Tannerabread explained the canonical URL format (/tag/:slug/:id) and Mcwumbly argued that /tag/:foo should always treat :foo as a slug, using the ID form for disambiguation. read more

#Community Building

  • How I Revamped Our Forum’s Visitor Flow – Don shared a custom solution for age-restricted forums that avoids the built-in “Login Required” setting (which blocks search engine crawlers). Instead, a topic preview card appears above the login form, giving visitors a teaser and redirecting them to the specific topic after login, dramatically reducing bounce rates. read more

#Site feedback

  • Quick welfare check on the AI caption bot – NateDhaliwal noted that rebaking oneboxes doesn’t refresh AI captions. Sam confirmed that Nat is reworking the subsystem and a toggle for rebaking captions will be added. Nat closed the topic as resolved. read more

  • Broken avatars in quotes within translated posts – Moin reported that while broken avatars in translated quotes appear fixed in one topic, many other topics still exhibit the issue, and asked for a bulk fix. No staff response yet. read more

wordpress

  • WP Discourse is auto publishing old posts when performing bulk updates with the TaxoPress Plugin – Loukas_Stamellos described old (14-year) posts being auto-published to Discourse when tags are bulk-updated via TaxoPress. Angus suggested temporarily disabling Auto Publish during bulk operations, noting that the plugin’s automatic nature makes it tricky to prevent. read more

#Theme component

  • Watermark Image – Moin notified component author Arkshine that the everyone group default in settings will be removed soon due to core changes, and a migration to anonymous_users may not be appropriate for this use case. read more

  • Be the first to reply – Don shared a CSS animation for the “first replier” component that fades like a battery indicator, matching his forum’s theme. read more

Activity by the Team Group

  • Sam – chimed in on the AI caption bot topic, announcing that Nat is reworking the subsystem and that a toggle for rebaking captions will be provided. see topic
  • Nat – closed the AI caption bot topic as resolved after the rework. see topic
  • Martin – provided key updates on the granular group-based permissions feature, confirming the disallowed_groups merge and debugging Lilly's component issue. Later, he clarified that a recent GitHub issue caused a delay in the update reaching latest. see topic 1 see topic 2
  • Lilly – asked for help configuring disallowed_groups in her theme component, and also helped a user by explaining how to use &nbsp; for preserving spaces in poetry. see topic 1 see topic 2
  • Moin – was the most active team member, providing authoritative answers on unlisted topics (confirming notifications are sent), debugging Lilly’s group permission issue, notifying component authors about the everyone group removal, and noting broken avatars in translated posts. He also commented on the larger “Email me” link in the new signup flow. see topic 1 see topic 2 see topic 3 see topic 4 see topic 5
  • Zogstrip – reviewed and merged the “Boosts can’t be flagged by multiple users” fix. see topic
  • J.Jaffeux – pointed out the title typo in the boosts fix topic. see topic
  • Angus – assisted with the WP Discourse auto-publishing issue, explaining the design constraints and recommending disabling Auto Publish during bulk updates. see topic
  • Chapoi – advised the RFP requester about using Rich Text Mode and demonstrated backtick formatting for poetry with custom CSS. see topic 1 see topic 2
  • Merefield – suggested Nested Replies as an alternative for navigation improvements in the RFP topic. see topic
  • Tannerabread – explained the canonical URL format for numerical tags and why the ambiguity exists. see topic

From unlisted topics to poetic spaces, the Discourse community proves that no detail is too small to care about — even leading spaces get their moment in the sun. :sun_with_face: