Hi,
I notice that when I scroll through all the topics on my forum, that there aren’t page numbers – it just goes on and on and on. This might be problematic for users who have forgotten the title of a specific post.
Is there some sort of plugin or setting for page numbers? Forums have always used them for a reason.
The title gets placed in the header when you scroll down.
Hello Johnny_McIvor,
Adding onto what Robert has said
Discourse doesn’t use pagination. Its not something it’ll be adding as its seen as a relic of old forums and is best left in the past. Many modern web apps aren’t paginated either. Furthermore, the topic timeline in Discourse remembers which post you were on/have read so if you leave the topic you know where you got up to.
There was some discussion around this a while ago…
Forums definitely shouldn’t abandon useful features like pagination; this is the reason why Twitter and Discord are annoying to use. It should at least be an option, especially when forums are getting popular again.
Social media is designed to keep users engaged rather than provide information or meaningful discussion. Infinite scrolling is designed for – infinite scrolling. It’s for memes, quick takes, and skippable content. Page numbers are designed so that you can remember approximately where something was, or to skip to a specific date.
I should also add: technologies do not become obsolete, it’s more like they become niche technologies.
Hmm I read more, I think I understand what you’re doing now
The reason they are annoying is because X [1] hasn’t quite implemented infinite scrolling properly and has issues described in the blog.
As for Discord, its a synchronous chat service not a forum and its for keeping users “engaged rather than provide information or meaningful discussion. Infinite scrolling is designed for – infinite scrolling. It’s for memes, quick takes, and skippable content.” Its different to Discourse in a couple of ways so not the best comparison for pagination. Although Discord keeps your chats, they are unstructured. This is because its not meant for meaningful discussions whereas Discourse is.
I personally use bookmarks for this purpose or rely on the timeline to tell me where I got up to.
I understand there are different points of view of pagination, I speak mainly from my point of view as I’ve found it to be really good. Nowadays, many companies and people use Discourse - even Discourse as you can see 
and I think that a clean, modern and easy to use design is really important when it comes to communication with members/colleagues. After all, that’s what Discourse is about: reinventing forums to modernise them. Having to click another button adds friction to what you’re doing for me pressing ‘next’ [2] almost becomes a ‘chore’.
It’ll be interesting to hear what others think.
All I know is if some interesting topic has been on page 3, and I try to find it one, seven or 365 days later, only one thing is certain: it is not on page 3.
All what pagination forces me to do is clicking a link to load up more topics.
I was convinced for years that infinite scrolling was superior in any way to pagination.
The argument that pagination allows the user to catch a breath or stop browsing felt wrong to me. I was more like “If a user wants to stop reading, they stop reading, whether there’s pagination or infinite scroll 
”
Until a few days ago!
I’m a daily user of Reddit (don’t judge me), which has infinite scrolling.
A few weeks ago, instead of browsing Reddit, I installed Redlib, a local client that serves Reddit content without the noise, and it also uses pagination instead of infinite scroll.
More precisely, there’s a NEXT button at the bottom of the page, after X posts, which when clicked reloads the page and shows the next batch of posts.
I only realized after a few weeks (which was, like, two days ago) that I felt way more at ease when browsing Reddit through Redlib. I was not sucked into an endless scrolling of posts, looking at each post like a zombie.
The pagination made me read fewer posts, and forced me to stop, which made me more relaxed when browsing Reddit’s content.
I now think infinite scrolling sometimes exploits our cognitive vulnerabilities and is not necessarily the best for one’s sake of mind compared to a “next” button that requires user interaction to see further content.
I also think it heavily depends on the person, the website, the context, the mood, etc.
I feel relieved that pagination makes me see less of Reddit, but I definitively wouldn’t be happy if there was pagination on meta.discourse.org.
I don’t go to both of these websites for the same reasons at all, as they don’t offer the same content, which is also presented very differently.
I think Discourse should offer both options at an admin level (who chooses the default) and user level (who chooses what is best for them).
Edit : pagination isn’t the only way to incite users to stop reading at some point.
This theme component proposes an alternative: Take a break! Theme component
I remembered it after reading the abstract of this paper: Design and Development of a Mobile Application to Combat Digital Addiction and Dissociative States During Phone Usage.
Infinite scroll is just a front end tool but obviously it’s associated with algorithmically generated content feeds on the majority of large social media sites. The problem of infinite scroll on those platforms is that it’s weaponized for attention harvesting. Specifically, the slot machine effect of not knowing what to expect next when you swipe down plus the lack of any obvious stopping point.
In Discourse, there’s no real malicious goal to the infinite scroll. The theme of each topic is predetermined by the title so there’s not a real slot machine effect of not knowing what to expect next. The standard browsing of a forum also introduces organic stopping points at the end of topics. It’s more of a QOL improvement compared to constantly needing to click on links to the next page.
That’s what I think at least
What I wanted to say as well! You explained it very well. It’s different in Discourse; the intent is clear, and you won’t compulsively scroll down with this software. It saves energy and clicks more than anything else.
This. That’s what I was trying to say earlier except that I did so in a long way 
You’re right piffy, a user is less likely to compulsively scroll on Discourse. Even if it can still be the case for some people on certain topics / communities, the infinite scroll is not exploited like social networks do, where it appears more like some sort of dark pattern. 
Still a fairly annoying platform at times. But they have bolted on a kind of forum feature now.
https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-Forum-Channels-FAQ
Mmh, interesting. I wasn’t aware that they had this on Discord.
But afaik it’s not open to search on the open internet?
This was a fairly new add. If you look at their FAQ iirc sometime in 2024.
As @merefield said not searchable on open internet. Imho it seems more of a patchworked add to discord to try and cover weaknesses/gaps in the platform
To add a bit about my feelings (which have been toned down following your well-written arguments), I’ve been occasionally stuck in addictive scrolling nonetheless in certain topics of certain communities; particularly in large topics with daily user contributions.
I don’t consider myself prone to be really “addicted” to this kind of behavior tho, and I think an optional setting would still be a good idea 