I want to ensure that posts created by the admin are non-editable by all other users, including staff and moderators. I’ve observed that even the Terms of Service can be edited by moderators. Consider a scenario where an active forum user is offered a moderator role, but subsequently begins to act unethically, such as editing or deleting legal documents like the Terms of Service. Is there a way to establish such specific permissions or restrictions? The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are currently in the default “Staff” category, so I can’t adjust who can create, etc. I’ve noticed that even Trust Level 3 users can modify the Terms of Service. If the suggestion is something like “You can lower the trust level”, that’s not a viable solution, as the moderator still needs other permissions to effectively moderate the forum without restrictions. Is there a default method for setting these kinds of limitations? Further, is there any way to edit each permission and remove/add the permissions?

[image] PrettyGirl: The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are currently in the default “Staff” category, so I can’t adjust who can create, etc. Move them to another category that only admins can edit.

That is the way, in new category creation security access setting can be set to admins only not mods. [Screen Shot 2023-11-06 at 9.30.01 AM] [image] PrettyGirl: I’ve noticed that even Trust Level 3 users can modify the Terms of Service. That is surprising, as default setting or someone changed that?

Thank you for the reply. [image] anon65426961: That is the way, in new category creation security access setting can be set to admins only not mods. I will quote my own post. The TOS is in the “staff” category. We can’t set/edit security for the staff category. Your method will work for any other category created by the admin. But discourse does not allow to set security for the default staff category. The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are currently in the default “Staff” category, so I can’t adjust who can create, etc. [image] anon65426961: That is surprising, as default setting or someone changed that? Not quite sure. It’s possible I did it. However still my main concern is there → To restrict anyone else to edit the legal documents.

[image] Jay Pfaffman: Move them to another category that only admins can edit. So, how to make the newly created TOS document (in the new category) appear in the default official “Terms of service” tab? at “examplesite. com/tos”. In your method, is it possible?

[image] PrettyGirl: appear in the default official “Terms of service” tab? How I would do this is to have these ToS hosted elsewhere on a platform that only admins have control over. Then I will use the discourse setting to have external ToS and other policy pages. That way, admins know where to make changes and nobody else can edit those directly on discourse.

[image] PrettyGirl: We can’t set/edit security for the staff category. Your method will work for any other category created by the admin. But discourse does not allow to set security for the default staff category. What you can do is first create a new category that only administrators can access, then move the terms of service page to that category.

[image] anon65426961: What you can do is first create a new category that only administrators can access, then move the terms of service page to that category. Have you ever done it that way successfully or you’re just thinking it might work? Because that may create new problems The TOS document no longer can be moved to the official staff category anymore (if something goes wrong/if your method doesn’t work) The above issue can create another one → now the TOS is not visible in the default TOS tab because the system cannot find the tos document in the staff category. Every-time you want to update TOS, you need to set “post title length” setting (as discourse has no seperate power allocated to admins on post shorter title lengths like “tos”)

Have tested this today and seems to work fine, and is possible to move TOS page back to staff category. Don’t know how the system publishes the official page from the editable version but changing name/category does not seem to create any problem for that.

[image] Bhanu Sharma: How I would do this is to have these ToS hosted elsewhere on a platform that only admins have control over. It’s not that professional as the new tos page does not appear in the “Terms of Service” default tab. It just directs to the post (and all other adjacent tabs “about, faq, prvacy policy” are no longer appear next to the terms of service tab - even the terms of service tab is no longer visible). These unnecessary restrictions in the discourse makes us customise the site very difficult. It’s also the same for about us page as well. if you try to remove the “stats” no you can’t it’s discourse’s forced decision you must have it displayed. Strange rules. It’s same for TOS page as well “no, you must keep it editable to all the unethical moderators, it’s discourse’s forceful decision” :relieved_face: it’s strange discourse forcefully enforcing their will on the site. I feel like discourses main slogan is “All the power to the community, non to admins” :sweat_smile::grin:

I feel like the prevailing policy of Discourse is that you should not have moderators that you suspect are about to misbehave; but if you do, everything they do can be undone. Category moderator is the position intended for low-trust moderation help. If a new staff member edits the Terms of Service to be something like “just don’t”, then the old version will be preserved in the post’s edit history. Hiding the revision doesn’t do anything, admins can still see it, and only admins can purge a revision from the database.

Is it possible to make all admin created posts non-editable to all other users?

Product Support

pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman) November 6, 2023, 4:50pm 2

Move them to another category that only admins can edit.

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Is it possible to make all admin created posts non-editable to all other users?

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