# Ability to Block Certain Readers from Seeing Your Posts
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [Março 29, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730 "2016-03-29T21:34:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@youderian](https://meta.discourse.org/u/youderian)
#### Post date: [Março 29, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730/1 "2016-03-29T21:34:48Z")
Does Discourse offer the ability to block certain forum members from seeing your posts?
Why I ask: Our private community is made up of business owners who share freely from their experience, strategy, etc. But as we grow one of the biggest fears is that a user’s direct business competitors who are currently in the forum (or those who join in the future) could see their contributions and using them against them.
Most of the time, when members start worrying about this they stop sharing all of the really good stuff. However, we’ve had requests about if it’s possible to block a certain user(s) (ie, their direct competitors) from seeing their comments. A bit unorthodox I know, but would be a great solution for us.
Is this something that’s possible or on the roadmap – or available as a plugin? Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [Março 29, 2016, 9:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730/2 "2016-03-29T21:43:12Z")
It seems far-fetched that people would post something that they didn’t want one user to read (even if that user couldn’t see it) since any other user could tell them. People could, for example, quote the juicy part not knowing that some user was supposed to not see it.
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [Março 29, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730/3 "2016-03-29T21:49:00Z")
Definitely not planned, all permission stuff we have is group an category based. Also, this is not something that is feasible via a plugin.
Why not segment your community into proper categories and groups?
---
### Author:  [@youderian](https://meta.discourse.org/u/youderian)
#### Post date: [Março 29, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730/4 "2016-03-29T21:51:17Z")
Thanks for the replies @pfaffman and @sam.
The problem is that the banning, to be effective, would need to be customizable on an individual level. We could do high-level groups, but then you’re losing out on the insights from a large sub-set of the community unnecessarily. The goal was to prevent just a handful of direct competitors from seeing your posts.
@pfaffman But you’re right about quoting as well - that crossed my mind, too, and not sure how you’d protect against that.
I figured it was most likely a long shot but just had to ask. Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [Março 29, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730/5 "2016-03-29T22:17:55Z")
If you need to communicate “away from the public” between staff, have a look at our whisper feature.
---
### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [Março 30, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730/6 "2016-03-30T16:50:54Z")
Perhaps this is a case for “Anonymous Posting” where the user could switch to “Anonymous” in order to provide the “juicy details” without fear of it being linked to them or their business.
They could then switch back their non-Anonymous public user profile in order to continue the conversation.
You **might** find people share more this way.
> [@How will anonymous posting mode work?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-will-anonymous-posting-mode-work/25370/19):
>
> Initial implementation is up, still rough around edges but works: [https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/f5d89169e2680da16a47c6a75ee21a9a2aebf472](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/f5d89169e2680da16a47c6a75ee21a9a2aebf472) You must enable allow\_anonymous\_posting site setting AND set anonymous\_posting\_min\_trust\_level to an appropriate level. We keep track of a shadow “anonymous” account but there is no way of telling who it is unless you cross correlate IP addresses in the admin interface. This anon account can still be banned and so on if it gets out-of-hand. […
---
### Author:  [@youderian](https://meta.discourse.org/u/youderian)
#### Post date: [Março 30, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/ability-to-block-certain-readers-from-seeing-your-posts/41730/7 "2016-03-30T18:38:44Z")
That’s a great idea, thanks Dean! That could definitely be a great work
around / solution.