How can I create a user with no posting privileges

Feature
1

I know this seems like an odd request - but bear with me. I would like to create a user that can’t create posts. I want to be able to create a Discourse profile for an organization, separate from the person responsible for that organization.

An example would be YoyoDyne Inc., as a separate entity from the YoyoDyne CEO. I would like the CEO to be able to create topics and posts, but I would not want YoyoDyne Inc. to be able to post. The CEO would want to link to their company profile when they wanted to highlight the company, instead of linking to their own profile and posting history.

2

Just deactivate the account after it is created? (maybe)…

3

Interesting. Would that allow the CEO to modify that account’s profile after deactivation?

4

Is the CEO a staff member or admin? Then yes.

7

Not sure I want to give the CEO that role. This would not be our own CEO. :slight_smile:

8

Is there any reason you need a technical restriction in addition to a policy restriction here?

2 Likes
9

Not sure I understand the difference between technical and policy.

10

Technical restriction = the software prevents you from doing it
Policy restriction = “don’t do this” (and reprimands will be taken if you do)

11

Got it, thanks for clearing that up. I can see the CEO forgetting that they are logged in as the corporate role when they updated the company profile, and then posting all over the place before they realize that they haven’t been posting as themselves…

I’d be open to developing a plugin that prevents members of a specific group from posting, unless there’s an easier way to do this.

12

So if you deactivate the account, make the policy: Any changes to that account’s profile must be submitted to X (who has Staff/Admin rights). That person then makes the necessary changes.

13

You are kind of imagineering a problem here, though. You’re imagining it will be a problem without any proof that it is. This is a dangerous way to design software in my experience.

1 Like
14

I agree that we’re a bit of an edge case, feature-wise, but we’re definitely mainstream, behavior-wise.

I would love to know that our users would understand - and always remember - that they are logged in with one account vs another. But absent-mindedness is deeply ingrained. Typing into the wrong chat window, texting the wrong person, replying to all, or forgetting which account you’re logged into, are fairly common occurrences.

Policies are great, but they don’t fix human behavior.

I am currently looking at creating a custom trust level group, or equivalent functionality, which would not allow posting. A more open-ended approach would be to create a trust level group with admin-definable or admin-settable custom privileges.

15

You can revoke permission of posting to topics of some trust levels using our plugin.
you can specify minimum trust level to post on a topic and here you get your functionality done.
here it is: Custom Trust Level

1 Like