# Sub-sub-sub-sub-sub categories
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [February 8, 2015, 11:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963 "2015-02-08T11:01:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Maestra\_Powers](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Maestra_Powers)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 11:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/1 "2015-02-08T11:01:42Z")
He there. I’m trying to make a decision now should I switch to Discourse from phpBB. I will have to convert DB of curent forun. My forum is not very complex, but there’s up to 4 levels of sub-categories somewhere. Like:
```
Music > Electronics > Dubstep
```
or
```
Games > MMORPG > World of Warcraft > Recruiting
```
I’ve found info that Discourse supports only 2 levels of categories now. But maybe there’s a plugin for this?
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/2 "2015-02-08T18:46:00Z")
Probably just have a music category and use tags for everything “deeper” than that. Same with games.
---
### Author:  [@Maestra\_Powers](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Maestra_Powers)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/3 "2015-02-08T18:59:30Z")
I’m not getting ya mate. How this gonna look like?
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/4 "2015-02-08T19:07:18Z")
It would look like categories with tags.
---
### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/5 "2015-02-08T20:24:14Z")
```
Games > World of Warcraft
Tagged: MMORPG, Recruiting
Music > Electronic
Tagged: Dubstep
```
---
### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/6 "2015-02-08T20:25:52Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> use tags
Tags coming soon? We are really looking forward to it! 😍
---
### Author:  [@uwe\_keim](https://meta.discourse.org/u/uwe_keim)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/7 "2015-02-08T20:50:17Z")
There is also a tag plugin.
---
### Author:  [@Maestra\_Powers](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Maestra_Powers)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/8 "2015-02-08T21:30:26Z")
Thanks, found it. And it doesn’t look very user-friendly and intuitively clear. More look like a crutch to me. Situation - new recruits comes to our forum to apply in World of Warcraft guild. Should I explain each of them that they should put “Recruiting” tag on their posts? That’s kindda turn off.
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/9 "2015-02-08T21:35:27Z")
The same problem exists with knowing what category to post in - except they at least have a description (_if_ they read and understand it).
So a brief “tooltip” description for each tag would be a good idea.
---
### Author:  [@Maestra\_Powers](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Maestra_Powers)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/10 "2015-02-08T21:47:26Z")
> [@Mittineague](#):
>
> (if they read and understand it).
Gamers don’t read and understand anything. They post before reading. And it’s not even the point - user should be able to post right away without having to read or understand anything. Each forum software aims for max comfort enviroment, and they should. If some decision creates inconvenience, confusion, complication - it should be reconsidered.
---
### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/11 "2015-02-08T21:48:21Z")
Then I’d argue Discourse isn’t right for your community at this time. If sub-sub-categories are a necessity, you’ll have to go with something else.
---
### Author:  [@Maestra\_Powers](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Maestra_Powers)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/12 "2015-02-08T21:51:56Z")
Yea… 😞 I guess I’ll have to eyeballing it till plugin for infinite categories nesting will pop up.
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/13 "2015-02-08T22:08:10Z")
> [@Maestra\_Powers](#):
>
> Gamers don’t read and understand anything. They post before reading. And it’s not even the point - user should be able to post right away without having to read or understand anything. Each forum software aims for max comfort enviroment, and they should. If some decision creates inconvenience, confusion, complication - it should be reconsidered.
So you are saying you don’t mind moving posts into the proper category?
Seems a similar amount of work would be entailed as tagging them.
---
### Author:  [@Maestra\_Powers](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Maestra_Powers)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2015, 8:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/20 "2015-02-09T08:29:48Z")
Let me explain one thing about gaming forum - all games dieing at some point. So as their forums. So I don’t want to put forums on dead projects with active forums in one bucket. For example, now I have:
```
ArcheAge
Recruiting
General Descussion
Our guild
Classes
```
But when ArcheAge will die, I will have to put this forum in to "Archive" category. With Discourse I can’t do this now. I can only delete all ArcheAge sub-categories and put all post in ArcheAge category, which will create a big mess. So I think there’s gotta be a plugin for more sub-categories, or Discourse devs should reconsider their decision on this.
---
### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2015, 12:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/21 "2015-02-09T12:32:02Z")
Why can’t you just change the permissions on ArcheAge to Everyone can See, but Admins are the only ones who can Create/Reply/See?
That way it becomes a “view” only category… (I believe this would give the category the “lock” icon too – making it feel like an archive)
---
### Author:  [@rafalp](https://meta.discourse.org/u/rafalp)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2015, 2:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/22 "2015-02-09T14:13:16Z")
I would assume such archivization is not to make content read-only, but move those forums out of busy spot to make place for new ones, while leaving users with option to still discuss elsewhere.
---
### Author:  [@elberet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/elberet)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/23 "2015-02-09T21:18:37Z")
With Discourse, inactive topics (and categories) will quickly become invisible anyways. And afaik, categories you cannot post in do not show up in the category dropdown in the composer.
However, the hamburger menu would become somewhat cluttered. 😕
---
### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/24 "2015-02-09T21:32:56Z")
> [@Maestra\_Powers](#):
>
> With Discourse I can’t do this now. I can only delete all ArcheAge sub-categories and put all post in ArcheAge category
That’s what’s great about tagging. Once a Category needs to be deprecated, you can simply migrate all of the posts in it onto a tag and remove the category.
---
### Author:  [@Maestra\_Powers](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Maestra_Powers)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/25 "2015-02-09T21:35:59Z")
> [@elberet](#):
>
> With Discourse, inactive topics (and categories) will quickly become invisible anyways. And afaik, categories you cannot post in do not show up in the category dropdown in the composer.
Rly? That’s kindda lame. I want old forums and threads to be visible, so guests could see our activity.
---
### Author:  [@elberet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/elberet)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963/26 "2015-02-09T21:42:30Z")
Not what I meant. They’ll be visible, but less-active content gravitates towards the bottom and users will sooner or later simply not bother to scroll that far. This is true for categories on the categories page (unless you override category ordering) as well as topics in just about all topic lists.
However, even ancient topics may pop up through the search, as long as they’re visible (and not archived, iirc).
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-categories/24963.md?page=2)