Is there a way for normal users to create hidden topics? CAMRA has recently set-up a Discourse forum to improve two-way communication between the members and the central organisation. In the past, they lobbed out one-way email memos with no easy way to follow-up and discuss further. My suggestion was to include a link to a Discourse topic to discuss further. We’d need to get the link first but don’t want to let the cat out of the bag by allowing the topic to be visible before the email was sent - so being able to flag the topic as hidden when first posting and then reveal it would work okay. I specifically said “Normal users” as we don’t want to especially give people who use this facility special rights on Discourse.

Yup you can either create it in a secured category and publish it to another category later or simply unlist it and then list it at a later timing.

Why not create it in a secure category and then recategorize it later? It will not strictly show up as anew topic though.

Creating hidden topics that are later revealed

Product Support

codinghorror (Jeff Atwood) April 23, 2017, 8:24am 3

I believe the topic timer functionality @tgxworld added to 1.8 will also work for this, won’t it?

Topic		Replies	Views
Hidden or staff only posts for collaborative moderation Feature	6	2000	April 2, 2015
Hide topic/post Product Support	13	884	April 17, 2023
Creating a forum available to any user with link Product Support	6	574	January 21, 2020
Unlisted topics: Making them more useful Feature unlisting	17	5343	March 3, 2020
Best option to have category "hidden" on Discourse, but otherwise accessible if you have the link? Product Support	13	1020	March 6, 2024