Hi there, I have a long-time user that is requesting temporary removal of all of their topics due to a specific personal reason. If their situation changes those topics could be restored in the future. While they are in the removed state the topics should not be publicly accessible even if somebody has the URL, and they are all currently indexed on the search engines. I read over these topics: [image] Understanding closed, unlisted, and archived topics Site Management bookmark This guide explains the differences between closed, unlisted, and archived topics in Discourse, including their characteristics, visual indicators, and use cases. person_raising_hand Required user level: All users Discourse offers several ways to manage topics beyond just leaving them open. You can close topics, archive them, or unlist them, depending on your goal. Each of these states serves a different purpose and has specific effects on how topics are displayed, interacted wi… [image] When to unlist, make private message, close, and delete Community Building Sometimes it’s tough to tell what action to take when you don’t want/need your whole community seeing a certain post. Anyone have general rules of thumb for when you perform each action within your community? [image] Best practices for archiving topics Feature What are best practices for archiving topics? I’ve not used this feature before, and don’t fully understand what happens when you archive something and when we should use it. Appreciate any explanation/links slight_smile From what I understand, Converting them to a PM would still allow other users that posted there to see them, so that option is out. Archiving and Unlisting will still allow access to whomever knows the URL. Moving them to a private / staff category would make it hard to restore them to the proper category. So it looks like “deleting” them would be the best option? As long as I don’t have the permanent delete feature enabled these would remain in the database indefinitely with the possibility to restore them bulk, correct? Does the bulk actions button work on all the user’s topics at once, or only the topics that are loaded into the page? Is there a way to differentiate between deleted replies and deleted topics? The /u/name/deleted-posts page shows everything together. This appears to show only topics: /filter?q=status:deleted%20topics%2Ccreated-by%3A%40Username Although I can’t understand why the syntax is status:deleted topics . And is there a similar solution for only deleted replies? /?status=deleted seems to show unlisted topics together with deleted topics. I’m not sure why this is, as there is a separate /?status=unlisted filter. There could potentially be problems in the future with restoring the user’s “deleted” posts, as there would be no way of knowing which topics were deleted for this particular reason and which were deleted for some other reason to remain deleted. Ideally I wish there was a settings option to make archived topics inaccessible to the public. Thanks in advance for your help, I just want to be 100% sure of what I’m doing to avoid creating an administrative mess for myself farther down the road.

Hi @rahim123. :wave: You might use the content flags and review queue for processing that kind of information. Here are some topics that go into details for your use case: Understanding post flags in Discourse Discourse Moderation Guide For the guide, check the heading, “Inappropriate Content”. :slight_smile:

Do you mean just their topics, or all of their posts? And is it important to hide the content or the username?

[image] JammyDodger: just their topics Just their topics is what they are requesting. But if there is a good way to temporarily remove access to all their posts I would be interested in knowing that too. [image] JammyDodger: And is it important to hide the content or the username? I suppose it might work to remove the person’s username and content from the first post in the topic and leave the rest of the thread accessible via the URL. But it wouldn’t be enough to simply hide the content of the first post with CSS, it needs to be not publicly accessible at all.

[image] rahim123: I have a long-time user that is requesting temporary removal of all of their topics due to a specific personal reason. If their situation changes those topics could be restored in the future. [image] rahim123: Thanks in advance for your help, I just want to be 100% sure of what I’m doing to avoid creating an administrative mess for myself farther down the road. It’s going to be a mess. :slight_smile: I was going to suggest anonymizing the account, but that doesn’t do much of what you want. This use case is not common, no one has asked for a feature to turn users non-public and back again. Good luck! :crossed_fingers:

It sounds like what the OP is wanting is something similar to vBulletin’s Global Ignore feature. If you aren’t familiar, it basically keeps all of a user’s posts and topics in place, but makes them unavailable to non-staff accounts until they are removed from the list. It’s one of the few vB features I miss not having in Discourse. :slight_smile:

Thanks to everyone for their replies. [image] maiki: This use case is not common, no one has asked for a feature to turn users non-public and back again. Right. I understand that it’s an uncommon request. I wouldn’t expect Discourse to necessarily implement an entire process for that. But I do think it would be good to implement a setting option to make archived topics inaccesible to non-staff. Then I could deal with manually archiving and un-archiving the topics, while keeping them separate from other topics that might have been deleted and should stay deleted.

[image] Claudia: It sounds like what the OP is wanting is something similar to vBulletin’s Global Ignore feature. Oh, that’s interesting: Global Ignore This option allows you to effectively add a user or users to every member’s ‘Ignore List’. However, users in this list can still see their own posts and threads… Enter a list of userid numbers, separated by spaces (for example: 4 12 68 102). – https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/options_userbanning

That is indeed interesting. Although I don’t think it would be enough in this particular case if it had “see this hidden post” links or if the post content was CSS hidden in the HTML. For what I need the former URL should throw a 404 for non-staff.

[image] maiki: Oh, that’s interesting: Global Ignore This option allows you to effectively add a user or users to every member’s ‘Ignore List’. However, users in this list can still see their own posts and threads… Enter a list of userid numbers, separated by spaces (for example: 4 12 68 102). – https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/options_userbanning Ok I want this feature now. :sweat_smile: It’s more or less a shadow ban feature.

Best way to temporarily remove public access to a user's topics?

Product Support

rahim123 August 30, 2023, 8:18pm 3

Thanks @maiki for the response. Hmm, I don’t think the Review queue would work, because I can’t bulk flag all of the user’s topics.

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