Anonymous Mode restriction per category?

Feature
1

I’ve got a forum where one category is for discussing sensitive personal details, and another is for feedback. I want to provide anonymous posting in those, but in all other categories anonymous posting would probably be inappropriate.

Any elegant way to enable or prevent Anonymous Mode posting for specific categories?
It would be great if I could add a category security line of: Anonymous Users => See

Pursued/Thoughts

  • I would set anonymous_posting_min_trust_level to 0, which would allow new users to post anonymously.
  • I wondered if I could set category permissions so that “anonymous mode users” as a group could only “See” posts in my non-anon categories. I saw the best it had was setting category permissions to “See” for trust_level_0.
  • Setting category permissions in most categories to “See” for trust_level_0 makes it difficult/obtuse for a new user to gain any reputation unless they posted anonymously first (I think).
  • I wondered if “anonymous mode users” actually gained their own merit/reputation and were able to increase their trust_level, which would defeat the idea of restricting non-anon categories by “See” for trust_level_0.
  • I noticed going into “anonymous mode” creates a new user only the first time they use it, then reuses the same shadow_id after that, so it looks like anon users would live and grow on their own.
2 Likes
2

Ok, I see that when create_shadow(user), it sets trust_level: 1, and trust_level_locked: true. I’ll assume that means anon users will ALWAYS be trust_level_1.

Oh, and I haven’t seen the code for it yet, but I’ve noticed that new anon (shadow) users are created for a user after a while, and it leaves the old ones around.

I don’t think these bring me any closer to anon security per category. Does it?

3

Curious about this as well. Is this supported now? Or can anonymous users post everywhere?

We’d really like to restrict them to the feedback section of the site if possible.