Hi everyone, on our Discourse, which is for a group of professionals with approved credentials, we’d like to achieve the following in the signup and approval process:
- Users whose credentials haven’t been approved can’t view any content on our Discourse
- Unapproved users are able to contact staff (not just one person via email) on their way to becoming approved.
- Ideally, we’d like whatever documentation they send us to reside on Discourse.
The alternatives I’ve thought of so far are:
- Possible but not satisfactory: Set “login required” and include a message in their initial email address confirmation email, which instructs them to send an email with info we need to approve. This method makes it difficult for all staff to share the task, however, and it also doesn’t make it straightforward to store documentation on Discourse.
- Possible but prone to mistakes: Automatically approve new users, but make every category visible only to users who are members of the group “approved”. Not great, because staff may forget to set new categories up that way.
- Possibly impossible? Automatically approve new users, but somehow restrict them from viewing any posts, and from doing anything at all except for exchanging messages with staff. Potentially by altering how tl0 works. This would be the smoothest way, and satisfies all three requirements, but is it feasible?
Grateful for any suggestions!