Only paid members can post, everyone can read and react

Product Support

AI-generated summary

Dimi is seeking to migrate a developers’ community to a Discourse-managed forum with a specific access model: public content, free registration, universal reaction abilities (like, bookmark), but only paid members can post or reply. pfaffman confirms this is possible using the subscription plugin and category permissions, assigning read-only to everyone and full permissions to paying members. Dimi clarifies that reactions (e.g., likes) must be available to all, even without posting rights — which RGJ confirms is supported. Dimi also asks whether purchasing the $100/month managed forum includes setup assistance, noting the subscription plugin isn’t intuitive. JammyDodger mentions a free trial and later sends a PM with details on dedicated support for hosted customers. khenmu suggests removing the ‘solution’ tag to encourage more responses, while pfaffman recommends a new thread for subscription plugin configuration. Dimi concludes that the original question is resolved: the everyone group with read-only access can still react to posts, and will open a new thread if further help is needed.

1

We want to migrate our developers’ community to Discourse managed forum and we have the following challenge:

  • We want the content of our forum to be public and everyone to be able to register.
  • Everyone can react to the forum content: like, save to favorites, etc.
  • Only paid members can comment and make new posts.

Is this possible?




I found this thread, however this partially solves our problem.

Thanks,
Dimi

2

Yes. Use the subscription plugin to add people to the group that can create and reply.

Category permissions allow create, reply, read,so you make everyone have read only and your paying members have create, reply, read b permissions.

3

@pfaffman This does not answer my question. It only repeats what I already found in the existing thread.

Do the read permissions include reactions, so everyone can for example like posts?

Also, I am not clear how to set up the payment/subscription plug-in. When we purchase the managed forum do we get a dedicated person to do the first configuration?

Thanks,
Dimi

4

Yes, if a category is read only for certain groups, then they can still like and bookmark posts.

Since you said it’s a developers community, what kind of paid members are they?
Are they already paying for your product or is this really a separate subscription?

5

@RGJ thank you for this answer.

It is a separate subscription to help us pay the costs for hosting the forum and others.

I do not find it intuitive to set up the subscription plug-in. Therefore, I am hoping that when we purchase the $100/month discourse managed forum , we would get someone to help us setup our forum.

6

If you’re referring to hosting with us, you can even sign-up for a free trial to check it out beforehand. :+1:

Discourse pricing | Discourse - Civilized Discussion

7

@JammyDodger We already have signed up for the trial and we are ready for the next step.

It is unclear how to get in touch with the team to start setting up our subscription and forum?

We do need to help for the first settings to migrate from our existing platform.

9

I’d suggest removing the ‘solution’ status from the above post. It showing as solved in the list of topics will cause fewer people to look at a topic in which you’re still asking questions.

10

Or make a new topic about how to configure the subscription plugin.

11

I’ve also sent a PM with further details about getting dedicated support as a hosted customer. :+1:

12

Thank you, everyone. I will make a new thread if needed. This original question was solved - User group everyone with only read access can still react to posts.