# Anonymous posting/private messaging
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [November 28, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475 "2016-11-28T11:54:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cbella](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cbella)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/1 "2016-11-28T11:54:13Z")
Hi guys
I’m the digital PM for a cancer support charity that works with 0-24 year olds and we have an obligation to safeguard our service users, particularly those under 21. I’ve been reading up on threads about anon posting and I tested it out myself on our staging platform of Discourse which we are setting up to support young people with cancer (16-25) and a separate one for significant others of those young people.
Although I think it’s great you have this feature I feel that there are significant flaws when it comes to safeguarding and usability.
We already have a forum up and running for 16-25 year olds but we wanted to move to your system should it provide what we already have in the way of features. Overall I think that Discourse can do the majority of what we wish a forum to do but with a few exceptions described below:
1. Posting anonymously - when a user posts anon on Discourse we as admins are unable to see who that user was. If a user is posting about having suicidal thoughts or abuse then we need to contact their social worker immediately, we are unable to do that currently on your platform.
2. We want our service users to open up and talk to one another on the forum. In a recent survey we ran, 46% of our current members said that the anonymous feature we provide on our bespoke platform was important to them, without it they wouldn’t open up to their peers and our forum would not be as active. However to enable users to post anon on your site requires a bit of thought by navigating to the anon icon in the profile avatar to switch this feature on or off. I can imagine many of our users simply won’t think to go to that part of the site to post their message anonymously and will simply presume it’s not a feature that’s available and therefore not post what’s on their mind. Additionally I can imagine if they do figure out how to turn the feature on they might also forget to turn it off.
Would it be better in terms of UX to simply have a tick box at the create message stage so the user can post anonymously?
1. In a similar vein to the above, our members in the same survey said they would love a space to message each other privately. However, again due to safeguarding, as admins we would need access to these messages if abuse, suicidal thoughts and even grooming etc were flagged, but I can’t see a way to view these messages in the admin area of Discourse.
2. Finally, we run regular Ask the Expert sessions which require messages which include the topic hashtag e.g. #moodexpert to automatically be hidden until the expert answers the message (can be up to 24 hours), do you have this feature, or something similar, already?
I realise this is lengthy and I thank you in advance for your help.
Charlotte
---
### Author:  [@fefrei](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fefrei)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2016, 12:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/2 "2016-11-28T12:51:40Z")
> [@cbella](#):
>
> However, again due to safeguarding, as admins we would need access to these messages if abuse, suicidal thoughts and even grooming etc were flagged, but I can’t see a way to view these messages in the admin area of Discourse.
Flagged messages should show up normally under flags. In addition, admins can view all messages – simply navigate to a user’s profile to see his messages.
---
### Author:  [@cbella](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cbella)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2016, 1:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/3 "2016-11-28T13:40:44Z")
Thanks Felix, is your reply specifically related to private messages?
---
### Author:  [@fefrei](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fefrei)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/4 "2016-11-28T14:11:38Z")
Yes, _messages_ are what others might call _private messages_. Public “messages” are called _topics_ 🙂
---
### Author:  [@cbella](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cbella)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/5 "2016-11-28T14:31:36Z")
Oh yes I can see now, that’s brilliant, thanks so much for your help Felix! 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/6 "2016-11-28T18:26:46Z")
> [@cbella](#):
>
> However to enable users to post anon on your site requires a bit of thought by navigating to the anon icon in the profile avatar to switch this feature on or off
> [@cbella](#):
>
> which require messages which include the topic hashtag e.g. #moodexpert to automatically be hidden until the expert answers the message
I think this two points can be adressed in a plugin.
- Making the anon icon more proeminent, like to the left of the search and in a different color
- Making every post that matches a regex be enqueued on the aprove queue.
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/7 "2016-11-28T21:25:04Z")
> [@cbella](#):
>
> we as admins are unable to see who that user was
Not easily perhaps, but possible.
This query “works” in [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) (Admin only)
```plaintext
SELECT users.username
, user_custom_fields.value
FROM users
JOIN user_custom_fields
ON users.id = user_custom_fields.user_id
OR users.id = CAST( user_custom_fields.value AS int )
WHERE user_custom_fields.name LIKE 'shadow_id'
ORDER BY user_custom_fields.value
```
example results
```plaintext
username value
AdminGuy1 35
anonymous 35
anonymous1 36
LeaderGal1 36
anonymous2 37
LeaderGuy1 37
SpamGuy2 38
anonymous3 38
BasicGuy1 39
anonymous4 39
TrollGuy1 43
GothGal1 46
anonymous5 46
```
\* the “anonymous” for TrollGuy1 is missing because the post was deleted.
---
### Author:  [@cbella](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cbella)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2016, 9:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/8 "2016-11-29T09:40:40Z")
Hey Mittineague - Thanks for the suggestion, this is using the [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) plugin right? I think that might work, it’s just tricky getting a “non-digital” to carry out these kinds of tasks. Our social workers and nurses plus volunteers who have had cancer will be our admins and it’s a big learning curve for them already, I was just kind of hoping that there would be easier ways of carrying out some of these tasks. Our current platform is bespoke so we scoped all these features in at the initial build but it’s sadly not a sustainable model for our future budget plans hence why we’re investigating products like Discourse. I know we’ll never get like for like but as close as and easy to use would be great.
---
### Author:  [@cbella](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cbella)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2016, 10:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/9 "2016-11-29T10:13:41Z")
> [@Falco](#):
>
> I think this two points can be adressed in a plugin.
>
> Making the anon icon more proeminent, like to the left of the search and in a different color
> Making every post that matches a regex be enqueued on the aprove queue.
Thanks Rafael - if we built the platform using the API I’m guessing we can make the ‘anon’ icon appear anywhere we like?
---
### Author:  [@UnitedFreedom](https://meta.discourse.org/u/UnitedFreedom)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2022, 4:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/anonymous-posting-private-messaging/53475/10 "2022-12-14T04:36:00Z")
> [@Mittineague](#):
>
> ```plaintext
> SELECT users.username
> , user_custom_fields.value
> FROM users
> JOIN user_custom_fields
> ON users.id = user_custom_fields.user_id
> OR users.id = CAST( user_custom_fields.value AS int )
> WHERE user_custom_fields.name LIKE 'shadow_id'
> ORDER BY user_custom_fields.value
>
> ```
Hey @Mittineague thanks for this query to help discover anonymous posts. I ran the query, but it returned 0 results. Could you confirm if this query still works for you, and if not suggest what might work? Thanks 🙂