Private forum, but some sections are public?

Hello,
I was wondering if I could assign a default category when creating a new topic. I checked in the config search bar but I was uncertain that any option did that.

The reason I want to do see if this is possible is because I am thinking of having a public forum where the default category is private to limit access to registered users but also allowing some information public.

This forum is private because it is for activist organization but we want to share some commons without having to maintain another platform in parallel.

Thanks in advance

There isn’t a setting to do this, no.

1 Like

@jomaxro

but is there anything near to doing this at an admin GUI or sysadmin file config level?

Or perhaps another workaround putting by default topics to something that isnt public for non registered users?

At the moment you’d need to develop a plugin for this. There are no settings I’m aware of that you can change in core discourse to set a default category.

2 Likes

Ok. I am thinking for a workaround:

  • I can force users to assign a category
  • I can set all categories but ‘public’ as limited to trust level registered user

Apart from staff, can a trust level 1 or beyond user create categories?

Nope, non-staff are never able to create categories. By default only admins can create categories. To allow moderators to create categories, enable the moderators create categories site setting.

3 Likes

Ok. So that would be a way of kind of keeping most things private in a public forum.

  • Force topics to have a category
  • All categories but ‘public’ are for registered users
  • Staff protocol for publishing content