A discussion is underway about creating private categories in a self-hosted Discourse instance. Wall-E wonders if it’s possible for an admin to create a private category where they cannot see the posts, even with their admin privileges. However, simon explains that site admins can still access the site’s database, making it impossible to hide content from them. The only known method to prevent admins from reading content is encrypting private messages with the Discourse Encrypt plugin. Wall-E then inquires about the compatibility of this encryption with the MathJax plugin, specifically for displaying nicely formatted equations.
Just saw this video on making private categories for a group of users:
The question came up in our community. As the admin of our self-hosted instance, can I create a private category for a group, and offer them complete privacy so that I am not able to see what they post? That group would have its own admin/moderators for that private category.
No, the only thing I am aware of to prevent admins from reading content on the site is to encrypt PMs with Discourse Encrypt (deprecated). Otherwise, site admins are able to access the site’s database, so there would be no point in attempting to hide content from them.
Is the MathJax plugin supporting this encryption? Will People writing equations be able to send that encrypted while still being displayed nicely on the receiving end?