Is the “Latest” list of topics on your homepage clogged with stuff you aren’t interest in? Here are two Discourse tools that can help.
Mute a topic. Toward the bottom of each topic page (below the last reply, above the list of related topics) there is a button with a bell icon. Click on this to reveal four possible settings for this topic:
- Tracking. The default. “A count of new replies will be shown for this topic. You will be notified if someone mentions your @name or replies to you.”
- Watching. “You will be notified of every new reply in this topic, and a count of new replies will be shown.”
- Normal. “ You will be notified if someone mentions your @name or replies to you.”
- Muted. “You will never be notified of anything about this topic, and it will not appear in latest.”
“Muted” is the one you want to keep a topic from reappearing in your “Latest” list.
Mute a user. If you’d rather not be notified of anything a particular user posts, visit their profile page (click on their avatar, then click on the box that pops up). At the top right there will be a button with a bell icon. Click on this to reveal four possible settings for this user:
- Normal. The default. “You will be notified if this user repies to you, quotes you, or mentions you.”
- Muted. “You will not receive any notifications, personal messages, or chat direct messages from this user.”
- Ignored. “You will not receive any notifications related to this user and all their content will be hidden.”
This can help hide an annoying user from you, but unfortunately none of the settings prevent topics created by that user from appearing in your “Latest” list. An option to do that has been requested, and there seems to be a plugin that enables it, but so far it isn’t planned as a core feature. So you’ll still need to mute individual topics to keep them out of your feed.
Categories and tags also have bell buttons that allow you to watch, track, or mute posts which have them.