# How do you hide a forum without cancelling service?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [September 29, 2023, 3:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491 "2023-09-29T03:40:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Milly\_Brown](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Milly_Brown)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2023, 3:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491/1 "2023-09-29T03:40:40Z")
We want to hide our forum (we’re seeing a high level of spam/misuse and aren’t currently actively moderating) until we can determine our moderation plan.
How do we do this without cancelling the service and retaining the data/questions that have been asked so far?
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@itsbhanusharma](https://meta.discourse.org/u/itsbhanusharma)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2023, 3:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491/2 "2023-09-29T03:53:36Z")
While there is no literal way to _hide_ a forum, here are a few advices that might help you better control the spam until you have a strategy in place:
1. Disable new registrations
2. Make forum read-only
3. Require approval for new posts
4. Require approval for new sign-up
5. Make forum private
You can use any combination of the above options to temporarily avoid spam as your case may be.
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### Author:  [@Milly\_Brown](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Milly_Brown)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2023, 4:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491/3 "2023-09-29T04:07:37Z")
Thanks for the response.
I’ve been searching through the docs and can’t find one that describes how to make the forum private (point 5).
What’s the best way to do this?
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### Author:  [@itsbhanusharma](https://meta.discourse.org/u/itsbhanusharma)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2023, 4:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491/4 "2023-09-29T04:39:31Z")
Under admin \> Settings \> Login enable these three settings:
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### Author:  [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2023, 6:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491/8 "2023-09-29T06:50:39Z")
> [@Milly\_Brown](#):
>
> How do we do this without cancelling the service and retaining the data/questions that have been asked so far?
If your site is hosted by Discourse ([https://discourse.org/](https://discourse.org/)), you could get in touch with the Discourse team using the support address that’s found on your site’s admin dashboard. They’ll be able to help you out.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2023, 9:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-you-hide-a-forum-without-cancelling-service/280491/9 "2023-11-06T21:25:07Z")
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