# Migrating from uncategorized to "General"
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 12, 2020, 5:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065 "2020-12-12T05:03:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sunjam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sunjam)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 5:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/1 "2020-12-12T05:03:36Z")
Hi all, I’m wondering about migrating away from #Uncategorized as I see having a preseeded category imposes strong limitations.
Is there anything I’m missing in moving all topics over to a new category called " General", which we can have total control over configuring?
Thanks for any and all suggestions!
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### Author:  [@JimPas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JimPas)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 7:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/2 "2020-12-12T07:07:43Z")
There’s nothing to stop you from creating new categories. You can use the pre-seeded `Water Cooler` or create your own. I have a `Random Thoughts` category in my forum - plus many other categories/sub-categories. About the only time we use (and rarely) the `uncategorized` is if someone is unsure which topic to put their post in. A mod will move to the proper category shortly thereafter. `General` is a nice fitting catch-all category.
Set whatever properties you want when you make your new categories. 😉
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 12:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/3 "2020-12-12T12:09:27Z")
There are settings either to rename “Uncategorised” or remove it altogether (with a warning about moving all topics out of it first).
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/4 "2020-12-12T13:52:25Z")
There is a site setting to disable it. That’s what I recommend.
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### Author:  [@sunjam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sunjam)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/5 "2020-12-12T16:59:50Z")
> [@Jonathan5](#):
>
> There are settings either to rename “Uncategorised” or remove it altogether (with a warning about moving all topics out of it first).
Since it is “preseeded” under Settings I will remove it. My understanding is I’ll need to move all of the topics first.
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> There is a site setting to disable it. That’s what I recommend.
Good, admins have requested users choose a category as part of their post. I do see the appeal of uncategorized.
> [@JimPas](#):
>
> A mod will move to the proper category shortly thereafter. `General` is a nice fitting catch-all category.
Yes, this is the reason our staff are requesting users simply choose a more fitting category (Projects or Classes) and choose from a proper tag (help-wanted).
Thanks for all of the feedback. Our site has been live for ~3 years. I’ve been wondering: _How many posts does a category need to: continue as a category, be merged into another category, or be transformed into a group of tags._
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 5:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/6 "2020-12-12T17:00:48Z")
> [@sunjam](#):
>
> How many posts does a category need to: continue as a category, be merged into another category, or be transformed into a group of tags.
Mostly the recommendation is to go the other way. Don’t create a category until it’s painfully obvious that you need to add one.
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### Author:  [@sunjam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sunjam)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/7 "2020-12-12T17:05:36Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Mostly the recommendation is to go the other way. Don’t create a category until it’s painfully obvious that you need to add one.
Truth is we never solidified this understanding… and I suppose too many trust levels are able to create categories (and tags). We have a lot of good information with redundant tagging (community vs communication vs communit5) making it basically impossible to actually index outside of search.
We do have a lot of different groups at work, so the idea is to clarify tags (many are actually assigned to chat integration) and move group-specific small categories into tags in either General as “Public” or our “Logged-In” only category or dedicate a group-based sub-category. I digress.
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### Author:  [@sunjam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sunjam)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2020, 6:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from-uncategorized-to-general/173065/8 "2020-12-24T06:45:44Z")
Migration from uncategorized to General went well! All posts migrated. though I did find myself getting confused sometimes by the way Discourse refreshes itself when moving 30 posts at a time… probably not the proper way, but worked well enough.
Still having trouble with one category that is [inaccessible for some strange reason](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-access-one-of-our-categories/170314/5), even though all of the posts show up. 🤔
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Mostly the recommendation is to go the other way. Don’t create a category until it’s painfully obvious that you need to add one.
Converting categories with ~15 posts to tags turned out to be not painful at all when combined with `reset bump date`. 👍
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> There is a site setting to disable it. That’s what I recommend.
Disable did the trick! Great to have users choosing their categories, especially now that we’ve weeded it down to just a couple.
> [@JimPas](#):
>
> Set whatever properties you want when you make your new categories. 😉
I’ll be interested to see if users choose to create more categories now, or perhaps turn to embracing tags instead. I still haven’t settled on the best method for restricting tags. Users (current 2+ trust) enjoy making up new tags, but it is really matter of clarifying our useful tagging system in a manner similar to how they are individually colored and displayed as sub-categories previously. Might split into an all new topic, but I’d love to add clearer descriptions and colors to our various tags / tag groups, much like… well… categories.