# Allowing only OP and Admin to engage in a single topic

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-only-op-and-admin-to-engage-in-a-single-topic/176425
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [January 18, 2021, 9:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-only-op-and-admin-to-engage-in-a-single-topic/176425 "2021-01-18T09:21:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![MrDavis97](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mrdavis97/32/206391_2.png) [@MrDavis97](https://meta.discourse.org/u/MrDavis97)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2021, 9:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-only-op-and-admin-to-engage-in-a-single-topic/176425/1 "2021-01-18T09:21:48Z")

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I’m basing what I’m asking basically off of [this idea](https://meta.discourse.org/t/restrict-replies-to-a-certain-group-of-users/120102?replies_to_post_number=1) and [this idea](https://xenforo.com/community/threads/allow-only-op-and-certain-user-group-to-reply-to-threads.118530/).

I want to be able to have a forum where a user can only reply to topics they created, and the admin has permission to create and respond to all topics.  
Is there really no way to do this in Discourse? It seems like a very basic feature, one that a simple plug-in might solve. It would be perfect for what I’m trying to do.

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### Author: ![Benjamin\_D](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/benjamin_d/32/277831_2.png) [@Benjamin\_D](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Benjamin_D)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2021, 7:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-only-op-and-admin-to-engage-in-a-single-topic/176425/2 "2021-01-18T19:41:55Z")

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> [@MrDavis97](#):
>
> one that a simple plug-in might solve

I think this is the plugin you’re looking for: [Discourse Restricted Replies](https://meta.discourse.org/t/restricted-replies-only-allow-certain-groups-to-reply-in-a-category/131343)

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### Author: ![MrDavis97](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mrdavis97/32/206391_2.png) [@MrDavis97](https://meta.discourse.org/u/MrDavis97)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2021, 8:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-only-op-and-admin-to-engage-in-a-single-topic/176425/3 "2021-01-18T20:41:45Z")

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Awesome, I think this is what I need.

Just out of curiosity, can you explain why, in the first link I linked to, why “Jay Pfaffman” says in the last reply to that thread, that implementing such a plug-in would cost $5k and expensive to maintain?

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### Author: ![Benjamin\_D](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/benjamin_d/32/277831_2.png) [@Benjamin\_D](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Benjamin_D)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2021, 9:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-only-op-and-admin-to-engage-in-a-single-topic/176425/4 "2021-01-18T21:14:19Z")

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It seems that Jay’s response predates an _official_ plugin by a few months (which fiddles with some core properties that could have been hard/expensive to maintain without some insight from the team),  
and his solution was probably conceptually different than what the plugin actually do.

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2021, 5:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-only-op-and-admin-to-engage-in-a-single-topic/176425/5 "2021-01-22T05:07:23Z")

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Basically you want PMs. There is zero concept of per-topic security in Discourse.