# New topics now need a category

**URL:** <https://clarionhub.com/t/new-topics-now-need-a-category/9463>\
**Category:** Site Announcements\
**Tags:** discourse\
**Created:** [October 27, 2026, 9:44am UTC](https://clarionhub.com/t/new-topics-now-need-a-category/9463 "2026-10-27T09:44:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mark\_Sarson](https://clarionhub.com/user_avatar/clarionhub.com/mark_sarson/32/6132_2.png) [@Mark\_Sarson](https://clarionhub.com/u/Mark_Sarson)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2026, 9:44am UTC](https://clarionhub.com/t/new-topics-now-need-a-category/9463/1 "2026-10-27T09:44:27Z")

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Quick heads-up: when you start a new topic you now need to choose a category. If you don't, you'll see **"You must choose a category"** when you click Create Topic.

Not sure which one to pick?

- **questions** – help requests, problems and "how do I…"
- **General Discussion** – news, articles and chat
- **code** – code and techniques you're sharing
- **Announcements** – free or open-source tool releases
- **marketplace** – paid products and jobs

Adding a tag or two is optional but really helps people find your topic later.

If you pick the wrong category, don't worry, we'll move it for you.

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![RchdR](https://clarionhub.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@RchdR](https://clarionhub.com/u/RchdR)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2026, 10:44am UTC](https://clarionhub.com/t/new-topics-now-need-a-category/9463/2 "2026-10-27T10:44:04Z")

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Are you going to bolt in that Ai thats been retrospectively categorising posts so it can auto-categorise?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Sarson](https://clarionhub.com/user_avatar/clarionhub.com/mark_sarson/32/6132_2.png) [@Mark\_Sarson](https://clarionhub.com/u/Mark_Sarson)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2026, 10:59am UTC](https://clarionhub.com/t/new-topics-now-need-a-category/9463/3 "2026-10-27T10:59:38Z")

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Good question, Rich! The tidy-up wasn't done by anything built into the forum. It was me running an AI assistant against ClarionHub from my own machine and checking the results as it went.

ClarionHub runs on our own copy of Discourse, hosted on a DigitalOcean droplet that costs about £37 a month. For comparison, Discourse's own hosting starts at $100 a month (roughly £75) for their Pro plan and goes up to $500 a month for Business. Those plans come with an AI allowance built in. Because we host it ourselves, we'd have to connect and pay for an AI service separately to get auto-categorising, and that isn't something I want to take on for a free community site.

So for now, picking a category is down to you, and I'll keep doing a quick sweep every so often to tidy up anything that's landed in the wrong place or could do with a tag.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RchdR](https://clarionhub.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/d78d45/32.png) [@RchdR](https://clarionhub.com/u/RchdR)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2026, 11:08pm UTC](https://clarionhub.com/t/new-topics-now-need-a-category/9463/4 "2026-10-27T23:08:04Z")

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I did wonder if it was something built in, or external. It seemed the next logical step for a webforum.

> [@Mark\_Sarson](#):
>
> that isn't something I want to take on for a free community site.

I believe the businesses accountants write these costs off as advertising, promotion and marketing. 😀