Rule-based virtual category

Feature
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This revolutionary feature can solve the problem of a single topic being assigned to multiple categories.
This also partially solves the problem of low category nesting to create a convenient community structure.
This feature is used in e-commerce to create summary categories based on rules (such as product attributes). This allows you to have one product in multiple categories.

In discourse, a virtual category can be created (or added to an existing one) based on tags or a group of tags.

It is necessary to make a new setting in the category settings.
When you select the “virtual category” checkbox, a window opens with a selection of tags or a group of tags, based on which topics with such a tag are automatically added to this category.

For example, we have a category about cats. We want to put one breed of cats in a separate category, but we want to leave the topics in the old category. We create a new category and based on the tag, for example, Maine Coon, the category will automatically be filled with topics with the Maine Coon tag, there can be a large number of them. This is one example of use, in reality there are many more.

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As I see this you want to show same listing for a tag, what a tag already gives.

What rules should those tag based topics follow in that virtual category, from original or would a virtual category has its own? And if original, what would happen when topics using same tag come from different categories with different rules?

Otherwise… Discourse is a wonderful tool for discussions, and e-commerce apps and platforms are the best option for selling things.

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How often do you navigate by tags? I never

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Almost all the time.

However, it requires that tags are used correctly on the forum. The most common reasons for not using tags are:

  • the user does not understand how tags work
  • tags are not made for users, but for the administration

There is the third reason too: a user never search something where categories or tags are useful.

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And what would be the advantage over tags exactly ?

Thought experiment: rename “tag” to “virtual category”. What would you still be missing?

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