# Using dynamic categories as isolated subforums?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-dynamic-categories-as-isolated-subforums/113652>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [April 7, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-dynamic-categories-as-isolated-subforums/113652 "2019-04-07T00:47:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![manfrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/manfrin/32/114660_2.png) [@manfrin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/manfrin)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-dynamic-categories-as-isolated-subforums/113652/1 "2019-04-07T00:47:15Z")

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I’m building essentially a directory of podcasts and I want to build the system so that each podcast has its own forum (or set of forums) – but linked with a single account that I’ll integrate to the directory with SSO.

I’m thinking that I can make each podcast its own category, and then each category page would show the subcategories it has posts in. However, this means I’ll likely have thousands of categories and I’m worried this is misusing how categories work (and that I might run in to performance issues having thousands). I’d obviously need to limit or even delete the ‘base’ view so that I’m not loading in every single category, but I imagine there may be other considerations I’m missing.

Does anyone have thoughts on this?

I’d additionally want to allow podcast owners to moderate their own podcast’s forums, but I believe this is doable (mods on per-category basis).

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**Author:** ![Stephen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephen/32/95011_2.png) [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 1:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-dynamic-categories-as-isolated-subforums/113652/2 "2019-04-07T01:40:45Z")

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Thousands of categories gets really unwieldy, yes.

Are the subcategories going to be the same for every podcasts?

If so, you could combine tags here, with one category per podcast and tags replacing the subcategories, or have one set of categories with podcasts as the tags?

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**Author:** ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 5:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-dynamic-categories-as-isolated-subforums/113652/3 "2019-04-09T05:44:15Z")

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I would be super careful here, 1000 ghost towns and no real community is not a great recipe.

When it comes to sites for podcast fans really you want to be connected with the actual podcasters, interacting with them and providing ideas.

My recommendation would be to roll out slowly, make dedicated sites for your 3 top podcasts where the community interact with the podcasters and grow from there. Use SSO to provide delegated auth.

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**Author:** ![manfrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/manfrin/32/114660_2.png) [@manfrin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/manfrin)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 6:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-dynamic-categories-as-isolated-subforums/113652/4 "2019-04-09T06:26:56Z")

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I’m not trying to build communities, strictly, and the purpose of the site is well off the scope of a forum. I’m wondering if the category system is what I should be using for this use case, not a validation of my business plans.

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**Author:** ![zogstrip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/zogstrip/32/512781_2.png) [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 9:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-dynamic-categories-as-isolated-subforums/113652/5 "2019-04-09T09:49:01Z")

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> [@manfrin](#):
>
> I’m wondering if the category system is what I should be using for this use case

Have you read this?

> **[It’s Time We Talked About Tags](https://blog.discourse.org/2017/10/its-time-we-talked-about-tags/)**
>
> Consider the typical sections of a daily newspaper: Arts, Sports, Business, Travel, Local, and World. Any given article belongs to just one of those sections, and the content in each section is quite different, such that some people, for example, may...