# Private users in Discourse **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature\ **Created:** [September 27, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-users-in-discourse/70878 "2017-09-27T15:17:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 3
**Author:** ![tvavrda](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/tvavrda/32/480674_2.png) [@tvavrda](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tvavrda)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 7:55am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-users-in-discourse/70878/3 "2022-09-22T07:55:04Z")
We are trying to use Discourse as a private support forum. It has basically everything we need and is great for just sharing information while allowing simple workflows (tags) and assignments. The scenario for a project is: 1. Create a group only members can see and allow our customer’s users to join 2. Create a category for the project 3. Create subcategories for tasks, meeting minutes etc. We disabled creating free tags as these could be visible to anyone. But private tasks groups for each project/category will do. We also did exactly what was posted here: Disabled user directory and hide profiles. The ONLY thing that looks bad is that any user can actually mention any other customer or worse, send them private messages (private messages can be disabled though so that is probably fine). But I would not like to disable mentions. They are too valuable. Is there any solution for this? The users are in completely different groups who do not share any categories with each other so I supposed they would also not share the common user directory. But I can get why this is not the case. But having a possibility to create really private user groups that are completely separated from the rest of the groups, would be nice. A setting **Allow mentions only to category members** would be really great. So you could not mention anyone (even staff members couldn’t by mistake) outside of the category. EDIT: Users also leak in the [Badges](https://meta.discourse.org/badges) page. So had to disable badge system in order to hide another “user directory”. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-users-in-discourse/70878)._