# Always-Anonymous Categories Plugin
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110
**Category:** Plugin
**Tags:** anonymous-mode
**Created:** [March 15, 2016, 10:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110 "2016-03-15T22:35:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@michaeld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/michaeld)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2016, 10:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/1 "2016-03-15T22:35:59Z")
I had a request from a co-worker to find a way to offer “anonymous Q&A” to our division’s employees. At first blush, Discourse seemed like the wrong tool for the job: anonymous posting seemed anathema to the whole point of fostering open, friendly, but lively discussions. Discourse does have built-in support for anonymous posting, but it’s a global setting. What we needed was a way to restrict anonymous posting to a single category (or a select subset of them). Even better, make anonymous posting automatic, so that users don’t have to think about it (and can’t get it wrong).
Thus was born **[discourse-anonymous-categories](https://github.com/communiteq/discourse-anonymous-categories)**.
This plugin lets you choose individual categories for “always-anonymous” behavior, where all posts and replies automatically use the anonymous pseudonym for the user instead of their actual identity. The user doesn’t have to opt-in, and more importantly, doesn’t need to remember to opt-out when they are done posting.
Here’s what that looks like:
1. After the plugin is installed, turn on the global setting to enable “always-anonymous” categories:
2. Then, pick a category (or create a new one) for which you want “always-anonymous” behavior, and turn on the “Force posts to be anonymous in this cateory” setting:
3. Now, when anyone posts (note that current user is “E”):
4. They will _actually_ get anonymized:
5. … like this (note that post is as “anonymous”/“A”):
This plays very nicely with recent versions of [discourse-feature-voting](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-feature-voting/), which can be used to anonymously vote on topics. (The votes themselves aren’t anonymous, but the identities of the voters are not currently surfaced through the UI, unlike “Likes”.)
---
### Author:  [@11145](https://meta.discourse.org/u/11145)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/2 "2016-11-04T13:31:21Z")
and whether non-registered users to post messages in this category?
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### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2018, 10:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/3 "2018-04-04T10:44:57Z")
Is this plugin still working (it hasn’t been updated since two years)?
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### Author:  [@Daniel\_Lopes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Daniel_Lopes)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/4 "2018-04-10T23:53:05Z")
Somehow I’m having a hard time making it work on my local environment. I’m gonna do some digging and share back here.
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### Author:  [@Daniel\_Lopes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Daniel_Lopes)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2018, 12:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/5 "2018-04-11T00:14:45Z")
Yes, it still works. I had to delete my tmp folder in order to make it work but I think this is a problem with my local dev installation only (not using docker).
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### Author:  [@JaredReisinger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JaredReisinger)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2018, 6:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/6 "2018-05-07T18:08:34Z")
Sadly, the purpose for which this was created no longer exists, so I haven’t given the plugin any love for the last several years. If anyone wants to take over maintenance, I’d be happy to let them!
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### Author:  [@julz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/julz)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2018, 4:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/7 "2018-05-22T04:06:41Z")
> [@JaredReisinger](#):
>
> Sadly, the purpose for which this was created no longer exists, so I haven’t given the plugin any love for the last several years. If anyone wants to take over maintenance, I’d be happy to let them!
I have a use for this plugin. How do I get it ‘looked after again’? Non-tech person asking, I’m on [Communiteq](https://www.communiteq.com) (formerly DiscourseHosting). @michaeld @RGJ
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### Author:  [@fefrei](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fefrei)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2018, 2:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/8 "2018-05-22T14:34:30Z")
Do you have a budget for this? If so, posting in #Marketplace is most likely the best approach 🙂
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### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/9 "2018-05-23T13:50:14Z")
Are you sure that the plugin is not working correctly anymore?
When I read the posts above it just says it needs a new maintainer but Daniel says “Yes, it still works”
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### Author:  [@julz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/julz)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/10 "2018-05-23T23:27:56Z")
> [@RGJ](#):
>
> When I read the posts above it just says it needs a new maintainer but Daniel says “Yes, it still works”
Yes, I agree the post says it needs a new maintainer. I guess that’s what I’m wondering if someone would do. Is that something that comes with my Pro hosting package?
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### Author:  [@adopilot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/adopilot)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2018, 2:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/11 "2018-05-25T14:51:37Z")
I am runing it on [v2.0.0.beta10 +111](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/compare/930ebb5684d8500a14fd728c1dc99a0f4ef9c9ed...tests-passed) and looks like it is working.
I do not have some issues whit my instace
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### Author:  [@puchal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/puchal)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2019, 1:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/12 "2019-06-28T13:26:14Z")
FYI - docker version 2.4 - adding the plug in generates 500 server error when posting to category flagged as anonymous.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/13 "2019-06-30T23:57:12Z")
@JaredReisinger moved this to #plugin:broken-plugin pending your investigation. I redid the way we do anon accounts in 2.4 so maybe it broke the plugin.
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### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2019, 6:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/14 "2019-07-24T06:52:55Z")
As discussed above, I and @michaeld would be happy to take over the maintenance for this plugin.
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### Author:  [@puchal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/puchal)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2019, 3:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/15 "2019-08-10T03:01:27Z")
You wouldn’t have ETA for a fix, would you? 😉
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### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2019, 5:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/16 "2019-08-10T05:35:01Z")
Probably somewhere in September…
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### Author:  [@Daniel\_Lopes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Daniel_Lopes)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/17 "2019-08-15T20:24:19Z")
@sam is right, the new work on the anom users broke the plugin. I’m looking into to this now because I need for one of my company’s products.
The error I get in product is:
```plaintext
NoMethodError (undefined method `create_shadow' for AnonymousShadowCreator:Class) /var/www/discourse/plugins/discourse-anonymous-categories/plugin.rb:76:in `block (2 levels) in activate!'
```
Coming from this line:
>
Will try to fix it and post an update here soon.
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### Author:  [@Daniel\_Lopes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Daniel_Lopes)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/18 "2019-08-15T23:40:32Z")
This is my quick fix: [Updating plugin to work with Discourse v2.4.0.beta2 · danielvlopes/discourse-anonymous-categories@08dda70 · GitHub](https://github.com/danielvlopes/discourse-anonymous-categories/commit/08dda707fb01fcdeaf78782997f019f5548b590b)
I think I could remove the user custom\_fields parts too now that Discourse has better support for anonymous users, but I will keep this change simple for now.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2019, 4:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/19 "2019-08-21T04:05:31Z")
@JaredReisinger are you still maintaining the plugin? If not perhaps @Daniel_Lopes can change to OP here to point to the branch so we can ship this out of #plugin:broken-plugin
---
### Author:  [@puchal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/puchal)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2019, 3:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110/20 "2019-10-12T03:47:47Z")
I’m sorry, I know I am not a guru, I cannot make it work… Could you pls write few sentences of instructions? Thank you.
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/always-anonymous-categories-plugin/41110.md?page=2)