User page says that the list is empty when looking in a specific group because "your community is still brand new"

AI-generated summary

NateDhaliwal reported that when viewing the user directory for a specific group (e.g., ‘community-moderators’) on Meta, the page displays a misleading message: ‘your community is still brand new’ — even though users exist. The issue arises because the system incorrectly assumes no users are present, rather than stating the group has no members. Moin acknowledged this as an edge case and linked to a resolved thread where default text was updated, but noted the problem persists in cases where user directory features are disabled. Moin also questioned when the ‘brand new’ message should appear, referencing a GitHub commit that ensures new users are immediately indexed in bootstrap mode — suggesting even the first user should appear instantly. The confusion stems from the system’s logic around directory updates, which are normally daily but triggered immediately on new sites to avoid delays — yet the UI still displays outdated or misleading messaging in certain group contexts. The core UX issue remains: the text should accurately reflect group membership status, not site age or directory readiness.

If you go to this page here on Meta, it says:


But:

Could it perhaps say that there are no members in the group?

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You have found another edge case

Solved: Text for no results in user directory
Unsolved: Misleading text for no results in user directory when ‘enable user directory’ disabled

I still wonder when the new default text is visible. I thought it was for new sites before the jobs ran the first time, but bootstrap mode adds users immediately, so I would expect that even the first user wouldn’t see an empty directory. At least that’s how I understood:

FIX: Create directory items for new users when in bootstrap mode (#27… · discourse/discourse@e3ae57e · GitHub
The users directory is updated on a daily cadence. However, when a site is new and doesn’t have many users, it can be confusing that a user who has just joined doesn’t show up in the users until a day after they join. To eliminate this confusion, this commit triggers a refresh for the users directory as soon as as a user joins, if the site is in bootstrap mode. The reason for the conditional trigger is that refreshing the users directory is an expensive operation and doing it often on a large site with many users could lead to performance problems.

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