I would like to keep my forum closed to visitors (login or signup to see content). Yet I would like links which are shared by members outside to be visible to those who are clicking on them and coming in to the site. Other content would be hidden. Or is there a way for admin to generate special links to preview content in a closed forum for visitors?
Currently, no. This is not possible. If login is required to view a topic, there is no way to get around having to login.
The closest solution I can think of is having a category visible that does not require login, and unlist the topics there. Unlisted topics can only be accessed by staff, or with a direct link. You would need a solution for giving your regular members access to them though…
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I’ve attempted this in PR 9295, but sounds like I’m still far off.
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I appreciate the effort to be clear! But I think this needs a lot more discussion here on meta first.
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Yes, even guessed URLs like /t/7. Known limitation
That’s some limitation! 
You’d want to do this properlyTM?
Various publications provide a workable scheme.
I assume they use some cryptographic arrangement where a limited use token is included in the URL and when examined by the server permits access within the boundaries of the tokens scope?
Perhaps you could create a plugin to achieve that? (but yeah, that’s a lot of intimate overriding)
Meantime, save yourself a lot of bother and simply re-organise your Discourse to put the more sensitive/inappropriate stuff away and require login?
Being partially public is good for your general marketing, so I wouldn’t worry about that.
I agree though, it can be frustrating that Discourse will not expose enough html to preview a Topic unless you have full read access to that Topic. You might argue that’s sub-optimal from a marketing perspective. I respect the solution to that is significant effort. Perhaps one day we could have a Read Preview permission?
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Thanks for engaging with this, folks! Interesting idea about a Read Preview permission!
Meantime, save yourself a lot of bother and simply re-organise your Discourse to put the more sensitive/inappropriate stuff away and require login?
I thought that was an interesting idea until I realized that some of these threads I want to share are already in private categories so it wouldn’t work. On further thought, neither would my fix. So it indeed requires more thought.
My use case becomes: Given a team with a dozen members and a private category, how can I share links to more old-school media (email, Slack) to encourage them to read the thread and register, participate on the forum?
My need pretty much comes from onboarding a current community on a new forum. Some users feel friction in doing that and I want to encourage them through reading interesting/relevant content.
I think integrating that within the current security infrastructure makes most sense for now.