# Hidden replies: educational settings

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [2017年一月4日 18:35 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166 "2017-01-04T18:35:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![jgmac1106](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@jgmac1106](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jgmac1106)
#### Post date: [2017年一月4日 18:35 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166/1 "2017-01-04T18:35:15Z")

</div>

I have been searching the forum about [hidden replies](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-looking-for-a-way-to-make-a-secret-poll/43805) and wanted to put out another use case.

I was looking for this feature as well as I use Discourse when building courses for educational institutions. They generally want open replies but occasionally for assessment purposes teachers do not want students to see the replies as others well.

I experimented with whispers and private messaging but this seemed to cumbersome for my learners.

TLDR: Hidden replies would be a neat feature.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![elijah](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/elijah/32/104055_2.png) [@elijah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/elijah)
#### Post date: [2017年一月4日 20:52 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166/2 "2017-01-04T20:52:13Z")

</div>

How do you see hidden replies working _differently_ than whispers?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [2017年一月4日 20:57 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166/3 "2017-01-04T20:57:26Z")

</div>

Don’t whispers work only for staff?

It would be great to have a write-only category, where people could post to a category, but not see other people’s posts.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![elijah](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/elijah/32/104055_2.png) [@elijah](https://meta.discourse.org/u/elijah)
#### Post date: [2017年一月4日 20:58 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166/4 "2017-01-04T20:58:54Z")

</div>

> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Don’t whispers work only for staff?

See in my mind “teacher” == “staff”.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2017年一月4日 21:02 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166/5 "2017-01-04T21:02:46Z")

</div>

This implies per-topic permissions which would be a massive rearchitecting of Discourse. Highly unlikely to happen.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [2017年一月5日 08:49 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166/6 "2017-01-05T08:49:05Z")

</div>

That makes sense , but how about write-only categories?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![jgmac1106](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@jgmac1106](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jgmac1106)
#### Post date: [2017年一月5日 11:20 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hidden-replies-educational-settings/55166/7 "2017-01-05T11:20:14Z")

</div>

Thanks for the heads up Jeff. Learning is better in the open anyways. I try to push clients to not care about people seeing each other’s responses.
