# Which category does "Make Public Topic" target?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [2017年十一月11日 10:07 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890 "2017-11-11T10:07:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@NickB](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NickB)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月11日 10:07 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/1 "2017-11-11T10:07:02Z")
When I click **Make Public Topic** on a Private Message, the message is converted to a topic - but I can’t work out which category it will end up in. How do I set the category for the ex-message?
Thanks, Nick
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### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月11日 12:25 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/2 "2017-11-11T12:25:36Z")
> [@NickB](#):
>
> but I can’t work out which category it will end up in
It goes in #Uncategorized category. You can change the category only after you moved the topic.
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### Author:  [@NickB](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NickB)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月11日 16:54 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/3 "2017-11-11T16:54:30Z")
Thanks - but I have disabled uncategorized topics, it’s there any way of choosing a category?
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### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月11日 17:28 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/4 "2017-11-11T17:28:39Z")
Nope, but I suppose it’s a legitimate feature request. You should wait for a member of the Discourse team to answer this question.
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### Author:  [@NickB](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NickB)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月11日 19:11 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/6 "2017-11-11T19:11:25Z")
Editing the category doesn’t fire the notifications for the new category.
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### Author:  [@fefrei](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fefrei)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月11日 19:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/7 "2017-11-11T19:24:20Z")
Another problem with this is when you want to move a message into a _private_ category. There currently is no way to do that without briefly exposing the topic to the public ☹
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### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月11日 19:26 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/8 "2017-11-11T19:26:30Z")
It may happen that a topic is made public to everyone instead of being assigned to a restricted category and administrators do not immediately notice it.
It has also recently happened to me to have moved a PM containing a link to an alpha and private project in a public forum area rather than in a restricted category. Fortunately, a user immediately alerted me of the error I had done.
PS @fefrei is a ninja…
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### Author:  [@NickB](https://meta.discourse.org/u/NickB)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月12日 17:51 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/9 "2017-11-12T17:51:08Z")
Thanks all, can someone point me towards the code involved so I can have a go at making a plug in? I haven’t made a discourse plugin but am reasonably handy with a text editor.
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### Author:  [@modius](https://meta.discourse.org/u/modius)
#### Post date: [2017年十一月15日 00:54 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/11 "2017-11-15T00:54:46Z")
> [@modius](#):
>
> Seems sensible to have a choice of category to target as part of the “Make Public” feature, if only to facilitate the ability to retain the privacy of certain topics.
As a follow up.. as we have a policy of always categorising a topic i thought we could secure the **uncategorised** category. Looks like that is not an option.
Perhaps the easiest change would be the addition of a forum setting that lets you nominate a specific category for **Make Public** that defaults to **uncategorised**. That way folks could set up a secure transition category where they have a chance to categorise the topic appropriately without fear of inadvertently making sensitive content public.
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [2018年六月22日 14:40 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/12 "2018-06-22T14:40:10Z")
我今天刚遇到这个问题。这里还有一个更严重的、目前尚未在主题中提及的问题。如果成员关注的是该功能默认所属的分类，系统会立即向他们发送关于该主题的通知，而这时你还没有机会更改分类。幸运的是，我后来转为主题的消息并不涉及机密内容。
我赞同提供管理员设置以选择不同默认分类的建议——这完全可行。或者，让该功能在触发任何通知之前，尊重“快速编辑”窗口期（在我们这里是10分钟——我知道这有点长），就像这是一个新主题一样。
复现步骤：
1. 设置一个测试用户，关注该功能默认所属的分类（在我们这里不知为何是 #Community Building，可能是因为我们禁用了无分类主题？）
2. 编写一条消息
3. 将该消息公开
4. 检查出站邮件服务器（在我们这里是 Mandrill），查看是否收到通知
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [2018年六月22日 21:02 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/13 "2018-06-22T21:02:46Z")
Ouch, it sends an email straight away?
I can see sending a Notification that when clicked would give the “oops”, but sending an email sounds risky.
My guess is the code is using the create time when accounting for the “ninja delay” instead of the move time?
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### Author:  [@Hooksmith](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Hooksmith)
#### Post date: [2019年六月16日 18:08 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/14 "2019-06-16T18:08:49Z")
I’m also having this issue where I want to turn a private message into a topic in a private category, without wanting to trigger notifications / listing in Latest / sending emails.
I found that this workflow works for me:
- **Unlist** private message first
- Make Public Topic
- Re-categorize the topic
- Re-list the topic
- Delete admin messages
This will not trigger notifications or emails. It would be nice if you could pick a category when choosing Make Public Topic though – when I used this option, it went into a seemingly random category that I did not expect it to go to on our instance (since we have uncategorized disabled).
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### Author:  [@emilio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/emilio)
#### Post date: [2019年六月18日 20:02 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/15 "2019-06-18T20:02:24Z")
This not huge deal for us but we have a decent number of volunteer mods who sometimes forget to change the category, and the category it goes to we have set to not show in latest lists, so can be easily missed.
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [2019年六月18日 20:34 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/16 "2019-06-18T20:34:09Z")
I also support this. It’s frustrating behaviour. @sam what’s involved in adding a setting to select the category for moving private posts public?
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### Author:  [@supermathie](https://meta.discourse.org/u/supermathie)
#### Post date: [2019年六月18日 20:38 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/17 "2019-06-18T20:38:09Z")
I think being able to select a category at conversion time would probably be the best option and also meets the principle of “least surprise”.
“you need to change a site setting before you make a PM public to control what category it goes into” isn’t very discoverable.
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [2019年六月18日 21:16 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/18 "2019-06-18T21:16:08Z")
Yup, that makes sense.
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### Author:  [@Loki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Loki)
#### Post date: [2019年七月17日 20:34 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/19 "2019-07-17T20:34:13Z")
这件事有什么进展吗？我们经常将版主（PMs）调动到我们的版主分类中。让他们以这种方式公开暴露出来实在糟糕。
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2019年七月17日 23:16 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/20 "2019-07-17T23:16:53Z")
我认为我们应该修复这个问题 @eviltrout
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### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [2019年七月18日 17:45 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/21 "2019-07-18T17:45:24Z")
今天下午我有点时间，所以为此提交了一个 PR：
>
>
> Previously it would default to uncategorized, which was not ideal on
> some forum…s. This gives the staff member more choice about what they'd
> like to do.
>
> !\[image\](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/17538/61479624-36099e80-a962-11e9-9955-0d5d7d0eca7b.png)
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### Author:  [@Loki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Loki)
#### Post date: [2019年七月18日 19:47 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/which-category-does-make-public-topic-target/73890/22 "2019-07-18T19:47:11Z")
谢谢。我不熟悉“PR”这个术语。就时间框架而言，这指的是什么？
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