Moved topics and watched/tracked/muted categories

I’m not sure this should be considered a bug or rather functionality that could be improved, but if a topic is recategorized from Category A (which I’m watching/tracking/muting) to Category B (which I’m not watching/tracking/muting), I’ll still be watching/tracking/muting the topic.

In the opposite scenario (topic changing from Category B to A) I’ll then not be watching/tracking/muting the topic.

This can make for unexpected notification behavior. The simple fix is to check for user category notification preferences when changing topic categories. There could also be a check if the user manually adjusted their notifications for the topic (or automatic tracking kicked in), but I don’t know if that’s possible or desired.

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That is how it works at the moment, but it is debatable whether or not that is correct. If a topic is changed months later to a different category you watch, should it then show as unread for you?

For rapid recategorization it probably should respect your preferences, though.

Months later: probably not. Within 24 hours: definitely yes. I don’t have any stats but I’d guess after a few days the likelihood of a topic changing categories is pretty low. A customizable setting would be cool.

That caused me no small degree of confusion when I first encountered it, because the notification at the foot of the topic said “You will receive notifications because you are watching this category” after it had been moved to a category I was not watching. I then assumed something had gone awry with my preference settings. It took me some time to work out what was going on.

We did fix this, if a topic is recategorized soon after creation it will respect your watch preferences for the new category it is placed in.

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