Effects of import_mode = true

When importing using an import script what does

import_mode = true

do?

It’s most likely not a complete list, but this is what I’ve observed while performing imports myself and looked up in the Discourse code base:

  1. Probably disables a bunch of restrictions for topic length, image count and so on
  2. Disables posting new tracking events and emails for mailing list subscribers
  3. Disables refreshing of avatars (download from Gravatar and such) and marking all posts with quotes of this user as needing to be rebaked
  4. Disables computing featured topics for categories
  5. Disables auto-close topic timers
  6. Disables updating user counts for topics

Items 3-6 are most likely performance-related, whereas items 1. and 2. are crucial to not create failing imports and noise for your user base.

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