Ethsim2 highlights the usefulness of the discourse-categories-suppressed plugin, which suppresses categories from Latest, New, and Unread views — not just Latest — while keeping them visible under a “Muted Categories” dropdown. This is valuable for use cases like staff inboxes, opt-in communities, and archives that should remain accessible but not prominent. Ethsim2 advocates for better integration, suggesting: adding the plugin to the official directory with documentation, incorporating UI controls in admin settings (e.g., suppressing from search results), and enhancing discoverability. They note the plugin already supports mentions in suppressed categories and offer to help with testing or documentation. A screenshot posted suggests the plugin currently offers minimal settings, confirmed by Moin who points to the plugin’s settings.yml file. The discussion ties into broader needs for granular visibility controls beyond muting or nesting, as echoed in other Meta threads.
Just revisiting this since I’ve been using the discourse-categories-suppressed plugin for a while now. It actually suppresses from Latest, New, and Unread — not just Latest — which makes it really useful for categories that should remain visible but not contribute to any “active” views. It’s probably more widely none that it groups the category below a “Muted categories” dropdown. Also, i have tested what i said on the linked topics about mentions’ coming through on suppressed/but muted categories.
It’s one of the only ways to truly suppress a category without relying on user mutes or hiding the category entirely. Would love to see this get:
a checkbox in category settings
a proper plugin topic on Meta
or even some lightweight documentation.
Right now it’s a bit hidden and underpowered given how useful it can be. Any chance of a write-up or some UI love for it?
Just following up on this in light of the recent post in Group owners should not necessarily be group members — both discussions reflect a growing need for more granular visibility controls that aren’t easily handled by muting, membership, or nesting alone.
The discourse-categories-suppressed plugin is already a huge help when you want to remove a category from Latest, New, and Unread without hiding it entirely from users. Some key use cases:
Staff inboxes (not secret, but shouldn’t distract from active discussions)
Opt-in communities that shouldn’t dominate the front page
Archives that should be visible but not promoted
To build on that, I’d suggest:
Adding this to the plugin directory with a proper topic + setup guide
Folding it into core UI via admin UI settings, with options like:
“Suppress from Latest/New/Unread”
“Suppress from search results” ← the plugin deosn’t already support this, but a UI checkbox would make it accessible
(Already implemented): suppressed categories appear in a “Muted Categories” dropdown at the bottom of the /categories page
These small improvements would let admins fine-tune discoverability and user experience. I’d be happy to contribute test cases or help document use patterns if this gains traction.
Adding this to the plugin directory with a proper topic + setup guide