Updating how categories are organized on Meta

[ToddZ]

@mcwumbly

I think in many cases, what I’m looking for is more like “category groups” instead of “parent categories”

Something like… Category Groups - Theme component? It wouldn’t be hard to come up with category groups to contain everything, though we’d lose the rollup functions of a parent category with subcats.

@mcwumbly

Lack of direct access to subcategories

I’m not having trouble with that, but it’s probably not super intuitive. If the default setup had parent categories in the sidebar list, then setting them all to “Show subcategory list above topics in this category” / “Boxes”, a la Documentation, could be nice:

(Apologies if I’m duplicating suggestions – there’s a lot to scan in this topic.)

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

@ToddZ

(Apologies if I’m duplicating suggestions – there’s a lot to scan in this topic.)

Don’t worry about it. We’re all just riffing here…

@ToddZ

@mcwumbly

Lack of direct access to subcategories

I’m not having trouble with that, but it’s probably not super intuitive. If the default setup had parent categories in the sidebar list, then setting them all to “Show subcategory list above topics in this category” / “Boxes”, a la Documentation, could be nice:

Yeah, @bryce shared some similar feedback with me elsewhere. I’m gonna see what we can do along these lines.

I had framed things as two options earlier:

@mcwumbly

I am debating between these two options as next steps:

• Further contort things into a consistent hierarchy
  Disallow posting in top level categories everywhere – push all topics into subcategories.
• Revert, then rethink
  Go back to how things were. Use parent/child categoies sparingly, but intentionally, with posting allowed in the parent category where used. Re-assess next steps

But Bryce suggested there may still be another option – to more clearly distinguish which type are which – so I’m going to try that first.

Hang tight…

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

OK, I’m made some progress today on these things:

• restricting posting in top level categories that are meant to mainly be containers for subcategories
• added descriptions for new categories so their banners show up
• configured top level categories to show their subcategories, to make them easier to discover

I still need to work on this:

@mcwumbly

@stephtara

I am sorry to say I’m definitely not liking the fact that the topic listing for Community Building is now filled with all sorts of stuff that to me have nothing to do with the “community management” area that this category covered for me previously

I’m not loving it either.

Will circle back to that problem soon.

[stephtara (Stephanie Booth)]

@mcwumbly

configured top level categories to show their subcategories, to make them easier to discover

This really improves things for me.

I think there is a glitch in the description for the Customization category. When I follow « learn more » in the category description I end up in crash course for discourse themes

[Moin]

I understand the advantages of having the subcategories at the top. At the same time, however, when I visit a category now, I no longer see any topics, only static content. I usually visit a category to find and read topics, not the name and description of the subcategories.

[ToddZ]

Are you just referring to what’s seen “above the fold”, or are you not getting the normal topic list below that?

[Moin]

There is a topic list below, but what I shared above is what I see without scrolling. Vertical space on a tablet is limited.

[NateDhaliwal]

@stephtara

I think there is a glitch in the description for the Customization category. When I follow « learn more » in the category description I end up in crash course for discourse themes

I think that was already in the category banner for the old #theme or #theme-component category.

[ToddZ]

Have oneboxed links to a category always had this nice format? Maybe I didn’t notice until they got descriptions and subcategories…

Reference screenshot. The real thing has live links to everything.

Very minor observation: long inline links to subcategories don’t flow quite as naturally in a sentence…

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

@mcwumbly

@mcwumbly

@stephtara

I am sorry to say I’m definitely not liking the fact that the topic listing for Community Building is now filled with all sorts of stuff that to me have nothing to do with the “community management” area that this category covered for me previously

I’m not loving it either.

Will circle back to that problem soon.

I made a couple small changes here, that I think help:

• I moved General back out of this category, as an additional top level category
• I reordered categories a bit so Community Building is second (1st after News and Events).
• I made the category description a bit more concise
• I did not add “show subcategories” for this category
  (It’s also not shown for Support)
  The decision about whether or not to show subcategories is dependent upon whether posting is allowed (or encouraged) at that top level
• I did not move out the other three subcategories (data and reporting, praise, comparison).
  At the moment, these still feel like the best place for these to me.

So there are now 3 main, top-level discussion categories:

• Community Building
• General
• Support

The other top level categories are more “category group”-like – primarily containers for subcategories.

I want to continue shaping this Community Building category. I’m wondering whether there are ways to provide greater affordances for more of these kinds of discussions for example:

• Helping community managers new to Discourse learn their way around the product
• Helping site admins new to community management learn their way around the practice
• Sharing stories/experiences

But maybe that is something to focus on more separately after some of this other stuff settles down a bit more.