The discussion revolves around limiting the number of posts a user can make in a specific category unless they belong to a designated group. Richie asks if it’s possible to restrict users to a maximum of five posts in a “For Sale” category unless they are part of the “Traders” group. pfaffman clarifies that a plugin would be needed to enforce such a limit and suggests a workaround by using a temporary can-post group that users are removed from after reaching the limit. The conversation also touches on whether “post” refers to creating a topic or replying, with the solution assuming the former. An alternative, manual approach of approving all posts is mentioned as a less ideal option.
Hi everyone,
Is there a way to restrict the number of posts a user can make in a category unless they are part of a designated group?
For example, we have a “For Sale” category. If we wanted people to only be able to make a maximum of five posts/replies in that category, unless they were part of a group called “Traders”, would this be possible?
I think what I’m looking for is a category setting which can be overridden by a group membership? 
Could you just give traders permission to create topics but not everyone else?
You’d need a plugin to limit the number of posts and it’s not clear just what it would do. Once a user makes five posts they can never hit another car?
Hmmm, I might not be coming about this the right way, or I’ve not given it enough thought 
My thoughts were along the lines of users who hit the 5-post limit either having the New Topic (and/or Reply) button disabled and being told they can no longer post in this category unless they join the Traders group.
A plugin could put all new users in a can-post group that they would be removed from when they created 5 topics in the category (which would allow new topics to be created by members of dealers and can-post). The plugin would have an add_model_callback(Topic, :create) (or something like that) and remove the from the group after the 5th topic is created.
Also, I’m not sure if by “post” you mean “create a topic” or “reply to a topic”. This assumes the former.
An easy, if painful, solution, would be to approve manually all posts in the category.