# Distinguish private messages from posts?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/distinguish-private-messages-from-posts/51468>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [October 12, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/distinguish-private-messages-from-posts/51468 "2016-10-12T21:12:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 10

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**Author:** ![riking](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/riking/32/170938_2.png) [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2016, 7:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/distinguish-private-messages-from-posts/51468/10 "2016-10-13T07:27:11Z")

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> [@tim.smith](#):
>
> . I’m consuming events in my plugin that are raised by Discourse directly, parsing/formatting the event data, and sending my own webhook.

In that case, you need to add post.topic.archetype as a field that gets sent.

Or, do `Guardian.new(plugin _user).can_see? post` and use the standard visibility checks.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/distinguish-private-messages-from-posts/51468)._