Today on meta.discourse.org…
Key Stats
- New posts (last 24h): 104
- New topics (last 24h): 15
Top users (posts / likes in the last 24h)
| User | Posts | Likes |
|---|---|---|
| Canapin | 7 | 21 |
| Moin | 8 | 12 |
| Lilly | 10 | 11 |
| RGJ | 5 | 10 |
| merefield | 3 | 8 |
| ducks | 1 | 7 |
| gilles | 8 | 6 |
| Falco | 2 | 5 |
| jordan.vidrine | 2 | 5 |
| awesomerobot | 2 | 4 |
A lot of the energy clustered around mobile composer UX and day-to-day admin practicality: the mobile composer overhaul discussion in ux (read more) cross-pollinated with the “how do I close the tag selector?” question (read more), while “what’s supported?” conversations popped up on legacy Windows access (read more) and Discourse-hosted SSO/OIDC trouble reports (read more).
Interesting Topics
ux
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Canapin kicked off a wide-ranging reality check on creating/editing posts on mobile in 2026, arguing the composer is visually and functionally overwhelming on small screens and asking what should be removed from the default experience (read more); the thread also connected to reports of composer freezing (read more) and older mobile UX context (read more).
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The “close the tag selector on mobile” UX papercut got its own focused thread: the selector stays open with no obvious dismissal pattern, and users described awkward workarounds like dismissing the keyboard first (read more).
#Site feedback
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A request to make feature/bugfix announcement topics include a version number highlighted the gap between
tests-passedexpectations and the reality of managed hosting + large plugin/theme stacks, where “just update daily” isn’t workable (read more); the discussion referenced a chat pinning announcement as an example (read more). -
Ongoing feedback on the Meta branded theme rebuild continued, with mobile spacing called out as “too much padding” that reduces usable width on narrow screens (read more); related meta “plugin availability notes” confusion also saw a small improvement (scroll margin) land (read more).
Support
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“What versions of Windows are supported?” turned into a practical clarification: Discourse support tracks supported browsers and, as staff emphasized, no support for OS versions Microsoft no longer supports—with real-world notes about modern TLS + browser feature requirements and workable Chromium/Firefox forks for stragglers (read more); background context included legacy browser policy (read more) and legacy browser guidance (read more).
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A Discourse-hosted (customer) incident: users reported OIDC login failures on the OpenAI Discourse forum, with multiple confirmations that “Sorry, there was an error… with oidc” is reproducible (read more).
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A nuanced uploads question: .txt and .yaml attachment “download links” open raw text instead of downloading, prompting discussion of storage/CDN/S3 headers like
content-dispositionand whether “secure uploads” is the right lever (read more); a potentially related S3 filename/download behavior thread was cited (read more). -
A migration/admin-defaults edge case: staged users inherited “watching” via TL0 group settings, and the thread explored whether “default categories watching” behaves as admins expect (especially pre-activation) (read more); the setup referenced a Google Groups migration path (read more).
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A moderation anomaly: admins saw the system flag multiple old posts (including PMs) as spam with confusing review-queue messages (including “Is this post or undefined?”) alongside a worker timeout/backtrace in logs (read more).
#Theme component
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A tiny-but-handy new component restores the composer fullscreen toggle on tablets / larger touch devices, where it’s normally hidden—aimed at improving composer ergonomics for bigger screens (read more).
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The official Versatile Banner component hit an unexpected external dependency snag: its default background image is hosted on Imgur, which is now inaccessible in the UK—making the out-of-box banner appear broken for new installs there (read more).
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In Quote Callouts, a locale-specific bug appeared only with German translation enabled; a quick fix was proposed and confirmed, and follow-up UX requests asked for icon-only/no-title callouts (read more).
#Announcements
- The ongoing experiment with Boosts kept drawing thoughtful community “culture-fit” feedback: admins want strong control (disable/hide low-content UI affordances), and reassurance that disabling doesn’t cause breakage (read more).
blog
- A delightfully deep infra post explained how “Jennifer Aniston and Friends” led to 377GB of bloat and ext4 hardlink issues during backup generation—prompting both laughs and appreciation for more technical postmortems (read more).
wordpress
- A wp-discourse feature idea proposed hiding specific Discourse replies from being pulled into WordPress comments by applying a Discourse tag (similar in spirit to existing trust-level based filtering) (read more).
Activity by the @team Group
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ducks published the companion discussion for the infra write-up on backup generation, ext4 hardlinks, and how real-world media load can explode disk usage (read more).
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awesomerobot engaged in the mobile composer reality-check thread, acknowledging “Meta is a worst-case scenario” and asking for actionable guidance on what to remove/simplify from the default mobile composer UI (read more); they also followed up on a theme-related composer/draft warning report in a reddit-like theme thread (read more).
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jordan.vidrine weighed in on the mobile composer discussion with both product perspective and feedback-quality guidance—encouraging specifics that can translate into fixes (read more)—and continued clarifying intent/controls around Boosts moderation and “fun features” in the experiment thread (read more).
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Falco clarified the practical policy stance on legacy platforms (Discourse support aligning with vendor-supported OSes) while also sharing tested alternatives for older Windows users via modern browser forks (read more) and follow-up testing results (read more).
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supermathie helped troubleshoot the legacy Windows accessibility complaints by hypothesizing TLS negotiation / modern cipher support issues and suggesting concrete diagnostics via SSL Labs’ client test flow (read more).
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derek shipped a small but meaningful usability tweak (scroll margin) in the ongoing “plugin availability notes” discussion, improving how anchored headings land on the page (read more).
If yesterday taught us anything, it’s this: keep your hardlinks healthy, your mobile composer buttons tappable, and maybe don’t let Jennifer Aniston anywhere near your backup volume.