Promoting a User to Admin or Moderator Status

[Discourse]

This is a how-to guide intended to help existing site admins understand how to promote a user to admin or moderator status through Discourse.

Required user level: Administrator

Admin privileges in Discourse are powerful and allow the user to manage almost all aspects of the site. For full details on what staff users can do on a site, see Understanding user statuses, roles, and permissions.

Here is a step-by-step process on how to promote a user to admin or moderator status directly through the Discourse User Interface:

Step 1: Locate the User

On your Admin Sidebar (.../admin), click on the “Users” tab. This will take you to a list of all users registered on your Discourse forum.

You can use the search bar under the Active Users label at the top of the page to find the user you wish to grant privileges to.

Clicking on a username in the search results will take you to their user’s admin page.

You can also directly search for the user using the header’s search button on your site. Click on the search result to access their profile. From there, click on the “Admin” button to access the user’s admin page.

Step 2: Promote the User

On the user’s admin page, scroll down until you see the “Permissions” section.

Here you’ll see two sections labeled “Moderator” and “Admin”. Click the box corresponding to the privilege level you wish to promote the user to.

Step 3: Confirm Changes

When promoting a user to an admin in Discourse, an additional confirmation method is required from the user who is performing the promotion. This is an additional security measure to ensure that admin rights are not granted accidentally or without proper authorization.

When you promote a user to an admin, Discourse will send an email to your registered email address. You’ll need to confirm the action by clicking on the link provided in the email. Once you’ve done this, the user will be granted admin rights.

If Two-Factor-Authentication is enabled on your account, instead of verifying admin privileges via email, you will need to confirm your 2FA authentication code.

This additional verification step does not apply when promoting a user to a moderator status. Moderator privileges can be granted directly from the user’s admin page without the need for secondary confirmation.

To see all of the current staff users on your site, you can visit your site’s /admin/users/list/staff page.

Additional Details

Revoking Privileges: If you need to revoke admin or moderator privileges from a user, you can do so by unchecking the corresponding box on the user’s admin page and clicking “Save Changes”. Email confirmation is not required when revoking privileges.

Staff Limits: If you are on a Discourse hosted plan, the total number of staff users (admins and moderators) allowed on your site will vary. See Below for details:

Plan	Basic	Standard	Business	Enterprise	Self-Hosted
Staff Limit	5	5	15	Unlimited	Unlimited

Last edited by @SaraDev 2025-03-20T22:04:28Z

Last checked by @SaraDev 2024-06-12T20:17:02Z

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Perform check on document:

[haydenjames]

Does granting moderator status send the member a notification?

[Moin]

I think so. I revoked the moderator status from my admin account for testing, and when I granted it again, I received a personal message:

[one1]

In the table above, why do some staff have one shield icon and some have two?

[Canapin (Coin-coin le Canapin)]

Admins have two shields, moderators have one.

[one1]

And if someone is an admin and a moderator? Do they have three?

[Canapin (Coin-coin le Canapin)]

Good question No, they have two.

[one1]

This may be a little esoteric, but it came up in a discussion.

Would a more accurate title for this article be

Making a user an admin or moderator

?

Because “granting privileges” makes it sound like you can give a user these privileges without simultaneously making them a moderator or admin.

It came up because a group of users were interested in having some moderation privileges even though they had a different official role in the organization.

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

Great feedback:

I went with “Promoting a User to Admin or Moderator Status” I think it is reasonably coherent with our documentation. @SaraDev any thoughts? Any further improvements to the title you would recommend?

[one1]

That looks perfect to me.

BTW, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the documentation here. It is a great blessing.

It would appear that the technical term used in the interface is “granting”. Not sure if it makes sense to have all the language aligned. A non-specialist might be searching for “promoting” so maybe it makes sense to use that in the title. If they do know “granting” and search for that it will also turn up.

[SaraDev (Sara Devlaeminck)]

@sam

I went with “Promoting a User to Admin or Moderator Status” I think it is reasonably coherent with our documentation.

I would agree that “Promoting a User to Admin or Moderator Status” is a more appropriate name for this guide, and makes sense in the context of the actions that are being performed here.

Beyond this change, I also modified some of the verbiage in the guide to “promoting a user” versus “granting privileges”, which should help address:

@one1

A non-specialist might be searching for “promoting” so maybe it makes sense to use that in the title. If they do know “granting” and search for that it will also turn up.

@one1 It’s great to hear that you’re finding the documentation on Meta helpful!

If you have any other feedback about specific documentation, feel free to share it on the documentation topics themselves as you’ve done here, or in our Site feedback category.