# Category banners from About-topic copy

> Turn each category's About topic into a persistent banner so newcomers see the purpose, rules, and next click before they post.

- Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/growth-ideas/category-banners-from-about-topic-copy/
- Source: [meta.discourse.org](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-banners/86241?tl=en)
- GrowthDex source hub: [Discourse Meta: Category Banners](/sources/discourse-meta-category-banners-meta-discourse-org/)
- Last checked: 2026-05-30
- Rarity: uncommon
- Budget: free
- Channels: Community, Website, Support
- Stages: first-visit clarity, community onboarding, route hygiene, brand trust


## Why this can grow

Many forums assume users will infer the difference between support, feature requests, announcements, and general discussion from a category name alone. They usually do not. Discourse Category Banners gives the operator a much plainer move: use the category description that already lives in the About topic and surface it as a visible banner on the category page. That reduces wrong-way posting, makes the first screen feel intentional, and gives each part of the forum a clearer job instead of one generic layout everywhere.

## Ian's take

From scaling consumer platforms across MENA and Southeast Asia, my default is to distrust growth work that only looks good in a slide. My bias is to treat this as a small market test first. Make the audience narrow, make the promise concrete, and let the first real response decide whether it deserves more work. For activation, the useful question is not whether users liked the page. It is whether they got to the first meaningful win faster. For this tactic, I would watch one clear growth signal before putting more time or budget behind it.

## Action plan

1. Define one narrow startup segment where category banners from about-topic copy can create a measurable lift.
2. Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Community and Website channel.
3. Use the evidence from meta.discourse.org to set the first version of the message, format, and audience.
4. Launch a small test for 7 to 14 days with one success metric: one measurable growth signal.
5. Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.

## Source-backed example

Discourse's Category Banners theme component reads category descriptions from the automatically created About category topic and can show banners even when the operator disables the default hide-without-description setting.

## Adjacent tactics in the same lane

- [Custom welcome message with Discobot handoff](/growth-ideas/custom-welcome-message-with-discobot-handoff/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Prefilled composer links for first-contribution routing](/growth-ideas/prefilled-composer-links-for-first-contribution-routing/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Clickable group titles for expert ladders](/growth-ideas/clickable-group-titles-for-expert-ladders/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage
- [Help center setup mode before public activation](/growth-ideas/help-center-setup-mode-before-public-activation/) - 2 shared channels, 1 shared stage

## Read GrowthDex essays

Browse the plain-English essay index at [GrowthDex Blog](/blog/).

## Related GrowthDex essays

- [The forum should route the newcomer before they post](/blog/the-forum-should-route-the-newcomer-before-they-post/) - community-led growth, support-led growth, product feedback

## Advisory

If you want help turning this into a working growth system, Ian Goh offers advisory at https://iangoh.com/advisory.