Looking to set up a new community with a regular selection of public categories in addition to hundreds of private groups of 10 people per group. Users would be assigned to a group after registration by admin. Would like to have the Group and its contents to only be visible to users of that group as in a private group. Also, would like those discussions to be private and to not be picked up by search engines, etc.

[image] tk: PM = private messaging Yes. [image] tk: If I have 100 or 200 private groups, is there a more efficient way to set up? If you have only a couple of hundred, then you can use categories rather than PMs. Group PMs are still easier, though, as they don’t require creating categories.

That’s all supported by groups within discourse. Categories can be hidden and protected with access restricted to particular groups. Groups can be hidden from non-members.

my apologies for not reviewing docs yet and for getting terminology wrong, just looking to see if supported before moving forward. So post registration as admin, I can create a group and add specific members to that group. I then create a new Category and make it accessible to only that group, correct? Would that Category still appear to all members or only visible to Group?

Would like these private groups to have their own discussion space, not visible to other members. PM = private messaging? If I have 100 or 200 private groups, is there a more efficient way to set up?

Private Groups

Product Support

pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman) March 31, 2023, 7:34pm 3

Hundreds of categories can be a performance issue. You might consider group PMs.

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What about private groups? Feature	11	5274	June 18, 2014
Creating private groups Product Support	3	2434	July 11, 2025
Difference between group messaging and private category? Feature	5	736	February 13, 2022
Feature allowing a Private Category to be seen, but topics remain hidden Feature	9	2354	March 7, 2018
What can user groups be used for? Product Support	4	1254	November 19, 2020

Private Groups

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