eipe2955, a new Discourse admin, struggles to delete a topic they created, frustrated by the lack of clear documentation and intuitive UI. They note the absence of a visible delete button and express confusion over Discourse’s design, especially regarding category description topics, which cannot be deleted because they are essential to preserving category metadata. Moin clarifies that while personal topics can be removed, the category description topic is protected — though it can be unlisted to hide it from users. eipe2955 acknowledges the explanation but criticizes the implicit behavior, finding it unnatural compared to other platforms where category descriptions are properties of the category itself, not tied to a topic. Heliosurge empathizes with the UX learning curve and directs them to the Documentation category for setup guidance, encouraging them to explore suggested topics and reach out to the supportive community when search fails. The thread highlights common onboarding pain points for new Discourse admins: hidden functionality, unintuitive design patterns, and fragmented documentation — despite the platform’s modern appearance.
Hi, I am setting up a Discourse forum for the first time.
I just created some dummy categories and topics just to explore how it looks like, but I cannot figure out how to delete a topic. Where is the button?
I have searched for this and found lots of resources talking about soft-delete, but I am an administrator. Surerly I have to be able to delete a topic I just created?
(I am puzzled by Discourse so far, it feels very modern in some aspects but then suddenly I stumble upon the simplest of things and get completely stuck! And the lack of searchable official documentation makes it even harder to get unstuck.)
The category description topic (About the xxx category) cannot be deleted as it is essential for preserving the category’s description. For other topics you have personally created, you should find the option to remove them. If you prefer not to utilize the category definition topic, you can unlist it, then it will be invisible for most users.
Ok, thanks. That explains it. Thank you for a quick reply.
However, I must admit this is very confusing for a user, it is very “implicit behaviour”. How should a new user know that these topics are special?
Coming from other systems it feels much more natural that the category description should be a property of the category itself, not being fetched from one (of many) topics. Why would there not be possible to have a category with no child elements? That is like nothing I have encountered before.
Welcome to Meta!