Enabling Category Moderation

AI-generated summary

The discussion is about Enabling Category Moderation. Turtle is seeking help on how to use category moderators, who can manage flags and posts within their respective categories, but not suspend users or access emails. Moin provides step-by-step guidance on enabling category moderation and assigning groups to moderate categories.

After implementing the solution, Turtle expresses gratitude and later inquires about customizing the moderator shield for category moderators. NateDhaliwal and Moin suggest using CSS to change the shield color or granting custom badges to differentiate between moderators and category moderators.

Moin also mentions the possibility of using group flairs to highlight group membership. NateDhaliwal and Heliosurge discuss using CSS to add custom icons or replace the moderator shield in specific categories. Ultimately, Turtle seeks a CSS selector to differentiate between category moderators, regular moderators, and admins, with the goal of distinguishing between the three groups.

Hey there,
I know there might be a topic about this but I couldn’t find it, and I’m pretty new to being a Discourse admin so it’s kind of hard to figure out. Basically, we need a moderator for each category with the moderator shield icon who cannot do things like suspend users and check emails but can deal with flags and do most admin actions on posts in their respective category. In site settings, I have enabled the category moderator setting but I’m not sure how to use it or what it’s actually doing. Could someone please explain how this works? Preferably step by step, as I’m fairly new to the platform?

I’m sorry if this is a duplicate post, but I promise I searched first. I also assumed the tag is used for posts like this but I might be wrong. Thanks!

I think there is currently no Documentation topic about category moderators.

You can find some information in the announcements related to the feature.

After enabling category moderation in the site settings, you should see a new dropdown in the settings of each category.

To find the category settings, navigate to a category and click the admin wrench at the top.

Then go to the settings tab. Below the “moderation” heading, you should see the dropdown to select groups who should be able to help moderate the category.

If you haven’t yet created the groups, take a look at Creating groups in Discourse

Thanks so much!
I cannot believe I missed that haha.
I will work on that, thanks again. Have a good rest of your day!

So it works well…
Is there any way to grant each category moderator group a modified version of the moderator shield?

Maybe with CSS? Though, I’m not sure if there are special CSS classes for Category Moderators.

Okay, let me know if you have any ideas. Right now they have regular shields but I’d like to be able to distinguish between moderators and category mods.

Changing the color of the shield of moderators should be possible. You can find the CSS code in

Maybe you could also grant a custom badge to the moderators of each category and use Post Badges to show that as an icon next to the username. Though, unlike the shield, which is only visible in the category where they are a moderator, the badge would be visible on all posts.

Group flairs are also an option to highlight a group membership.

So there is a special class. In that case, you can probably use ::after to add your own icon.

I imagine you could likely use group flair as well with CSS to not display when not in their moderated category. Or maybe CSS to replace the mod should in their category?

Hmm… yes, that’s a good idea. So it would appear that they are “normal” users when not in their category.

Yeah, that’s what it does right now.
I did the css component and I just need the selector for the category moderators/a certain group would work as well.
But now the regular moderators have yellow and the admins have gray, and the category mods have shields only in their category- the goal is differentiate all three of them.