thoka introduces the Discourse Reach and Rights plugin, designed to display category visibility, group permissions, and notification statistics via an infobox or BBcode [reach-and-rights]. The tool aims to foster transparency by showing which groups can read or post in specific categories, addressing feature requests regarding private category access 2.
During the discussion, Moin raised concerns about how the plugin handles hidden groups, specifically whether users would see names of groups they are not permitted to access. thoka clarified that while their goal is full transparency, they would show all groups but could implement obfuscation for hidden ones. In response to Moin’s query, thoka confirmed that hidden group names are now replaced with *(hidden*) for unauthorized users.
Separately, Jagster reported a critical UI bug where the plugin causes the category navigation bar to disappear and removes category labels from topic lists, leaving only tags visible. thoka requested a screenshot to investigate, as this behavior was not observed on their instance. Jagster provided images confirming the issue, noting it affects standard categories and suggesting it might be a conflict with other components. The plugin’s repository is available at https://github.com/thoka/discourse-reach-and-rights.
Everyone is able to see a configuration overview, with links to the appropriate groups (with signs, if you can apply for membership). Stats for notifications are also shown.
This information can also be included in post via bbcode [reach-and-rights].
Short Information
A summary button is shown near the button to create a new post
How do you handle groups that aren’t visible to the user?
For example, you have secret_group that is only visible to admins and public_group that is visible for everyone, and users are allowed to join.
Now there is a category that allows posting for both groups. Will users of public_group see the name of the group they shouldn’t know about in this case? Will users in secret_group see both groups, even though the group is invisible for them?
Since trust by trancparency is the goal in our situation, I would show all groups able to read a category in the infobox.
For special cases, I could imagine the need to have group names obfuscated, but I would still show, that there is a group defined, who can access the category.
Propose a (configurable) solution, if you like to have something implemented.
Cat navbar is just a secondary issue from something that affect categories. Its status doesn’t play any role.
The most of categories are typical everyone and some are for TL0.
There is chance this is just another conflict between other component/s or plugin/s. I can check that at some time, if you don’t see anything strange on your instance.
