Is there any way to moderate specific topics i.e. require moderator to approve before it becomes visible to the community?
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around the possibility of moderating specific topics in Discourse. tk3369 inquires about requiring moderator approval for certain topics before they become visible. Stephen explains that site-wide and category-level moderation options exist, but there are no settings to apply to specific topics. vige agrees that such a setting would be useful, as certain topics may trigger unwanted behavior. However, codinghorror suggests that discussions requiring granular access should be moved to group PMs. vige clarifies that the goal is not to restrict access, but rather to require moderator approval for every post in specific topics. codinghorror reiterates that per-topic permissions, outside of PMs, do not exist in Discourse.
In terms of site settings the option approve unless trust level would allow you to require all posts from users below a specific trust level be approved. There’s also an approve new topics unless trust level which has the same affect for topics. If you set that to TL0 all new users would need their topics or replies to be moderated site-wide before they appear.
You can also require moderator approval of all new topics and replies at a category level. If you look at your category settings under the ‘settings’ tab the options are called require moderator approval of all new topics and require moderator approval of all new replies.
There are no equivalent settings to apply to specific topics.
Having such a setting would be awesome. We have some topics which are known to trigger unwanted behaviour in some people. We would still like to have those discussions without the need to create a separate category for them :-/
Then they should be moved to group PMs if that granular level of access is needed.
It’s not about access but moderation. We want the discussion to be accessible for everyone, while also every post in the topic to require moderator approval.
There is no concept of per-topic permissions in Discourse outside of PMs.