Any word on this? My company is looking to use Discourse but I need to show them a proof of concept with the beta version I currently have access to. I do see that this only works in non-beta versions right now though… But, thoughts for my particular use case: The Category Moderator option would be helpful because as someone else already mentioned in this thread, sometimes we need people to have more control, yes, but perhaps less direct oversight. For instance, I wouldn’t want a group owner to have to worry about other categories that aren’t theirs. My company in particular uses Microsoft groups religiously so I want to reduce the amount of items they would need to approve to add a reply to a post (they want the categories very locked down).

[image] CoffeeGoddess: My company is looking to use Discourse but I need to show them a proof of concept with the beta version I currently have access to. I do see that this only works in non-beta versions right now though… Can you explain what you mean by that? Almost all Discourse versions have ‘beta’ in their name. That doesn’t mean they aren’t reliable; it’s simply the term used to describe milestones in the development of a new version. This means that ‘beta’ versions are usually very up to date, so I would expect that you should be able to use the category moderator feature, which has existed since 2020.

[image] For reference, this is the version I’m using. But our IT has it set up as a test (likely self-hosted at the moment) and none of those features are available.

[image] CoffeeGoddess: none of those features are available Do you mean none of the additional permissions for category moderators that are suggested in this topic, or not even the basic category moderator features like handling flags, editing, closing, and splitting topics?

None of the basic features are available at all (unless I’m painfully blind :sweat_smile:)

Let’s try to find out why it doesn’t work step by step: Is the setting for category moderation enabled? You can find it by searching for Enable category group moderation in your site settings [image]

You have created a group, and your test user is a member of the group: [Screenshot_20251118_222503_Firefox] And the group is added to the settings of the category the user should be able to moderate: [image] Then, I’d expect the user to have a shield behind their username on posts in their category and see admin wrenches: [Screenshot_20251118_222422_Gallery]

[image] CoffeeGoddess: For reference, this is the version I’m using. But our IT has it set up as a test (likely self- Okay, so doing that makes the whole group a mod of that category it seems? I want that group to all be able to view the thread but only the group owner (now a category mod) to be able to approve the group’s replies before they get posted to the category.

You’ll want to make a separate group for the category moderator, and place the group owner (and whoever else you want to have mod privileges) in it. You could call it something like “[group name] moderators”. Then, select that moderators group as the category moderators in the category settings, and check the box for Require moderator approval for all replies.

I tried this as well, but it gives them literal mod level permissions as opposed to just category mod-level permissions, does it not?

Help with setting up category moderators on my site

Product Support

jenmck (jen) November 19, 2025, 8:26pm 13

It does not. They can take actions on posts and topics within their category, but they can’t suspend or silence users.

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Help with setting up category moderators on my site

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