# Topics made with ActivityPub don't have a category?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** activitypub
**Created:** [April 3, 2025, 12:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221 "2025-04-03T12:42:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@NateDhaliwal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NateDhaliwal)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 12:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221/1 "2025-04-03T12:42:44Z")
I don’t know what’s going on, or what ActivityPub even is, but I think that is what causes this issue:
[This topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/content-warnings-are-ignored-in-topic-title-generation/360210) does not have a category, only a tag. Surely this is not intended?
---
### Author:  [@NateDhaliwal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NateDhaliwal)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 1:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221/2 "2025-04-03T13:17:20Z")
Relevant screenshots:
---
### Author:  [@pmusaraj](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pmusaraj)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 2:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221/3 "2025-04-03T14:27:10Z")
Ah, interesting. The #activitypub tag is configured to receive topics from another community vi the ActivityPub protocol (it’s a two-way sync, topics and replies on meta also go to the other community).
However, it looks like the plugin doesn’t pick a default category for the topics it creates. I am not sure if this is strictly a plugin issue or an issue with meta.
@tobiaseigen is there a site setting for “default category to pick when none is specified”? I see we have a `default composer category` but that’s not quite the same thing.
---
### Author:  [@angus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/angus)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2025, 7:55am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221/4 "2025-04-04T07:55:38Z")
> [@NateDhaliwal](#):
>
> [This topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/content-warnings-are-ignored-in-topic-title-generation/360210) does not have a category, only a tag. Surely this is not intended?
This is intended.
> [@pmusaraj](#):
>
> “default category to pick when none is specified”
I don’t think there’s such a thing as a default category in Discourse currently (strictly speaking). As you say, a default category in the composer is a different thing.
---
### Author:  [@NateDhaliwal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NateDhaliwal)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2025, 12:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221/5 "2025-04-28T12:06:34Z")
@angus This also happened [here](https://meta.discourse.org/t/transfer-topics-between-forums/363758/1). Is there a way to fix this, or is it not possible to specify the category when making the post via ActivityPub (to my understanding, this is [Discourse (@Discourse@mastodon.social) - Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@Discourse)), I think?
Perhaps a setting that would move topics created by ActivityPub into a specified category?
---
### Author:  [@angus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/angus)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2025, 7:43am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221/6 "2025-05-01T07:43:02Z")
Thanks for the suggestions @NateDhaliwal.
> [@NateDhaliwal](#):
>
> Is there a way to fix this, or is it not possible to specify the category when making the post via ActivityPub (to my understanding, this is [Discourse (@Discourse@mastodon.social) - Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@Discourse)), I think?
To clarify that topic you linked to was originally created on socialhub.activitypub.rocks. You can see where it was originally posted in the ActivityPub info.
> [@NateDhaliwal](#):
>
> Perhaps a setting that would move topics created by ActivityPub into a specified category?
Perhaps if I go over how this works a little more you might see why that wouldn’t make sense.
Discourse supports two type of ActivityPub actors who can publish and receive posts: categories and tags. Currently on meta there are two categories and four tags which have ActivityPub enabled. [You can see them here](https://meta.discourse.org/ap/about).
To achieve what you’re suggesting, the way to do that is to just create a category actor. Posts received by #announcements or #Contribute > Feature (i.e. posts sent to `announcements@meta.discourse.org` or `feature@meta.discourse.org`) simply go directly into those categories (if the category actor has “full topic” enabled).
What you’re noticing is that posts received by a tag actor, e.g. `activitypub@meta.discourse.org` for #activitypub, don’t automatically go into a specific category. If you think about it within the context I’ve outlined, it would be a bit strange if they did.
The role of a tag is to taxonomically group topics across different categories. If there were a default category into which all posts sent to `activitypub@meta.discourse.org` ended up in, then we should just create an #activitypub category and create an actor for that, instead of a tag.
Just stepping back a bit, if you think about this more broadly, it may be better to use a tag for a generic taxonomy like #activitypub instead of a category, and manually categorise incoming topics as needed. There are more specific actors relating to specific categories, however #activitypub may encompass a variety of types of topics.
Fundamentally this comes down to how a community wants to manage itself and its relationship with the fediverse. I don’t think technical solution is required here, at least not yet. Perhaps @tobiaseigen will have some further thoughts on how he wants to approach this question.
---
### Author:  [@NateDhaliwal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NateDhaliwal)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2025, 7:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topics-made-with-activitypub-dont-have-a-category/360221/7 "2025-05-01T07:54:41Z")
I see. Thanks for the clarification!