# Public category in private forum
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [9월 5, 2018, 8:48오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447 "2018-09-05T20:48:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [9월 5, 2018, 8:48오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/1 "2018-09-05T20:48:28Z")
What would it take to make it possible for a private discourse instance to also have one or more public categories?
A use case would be that the primary purpose of the forum is internal communication in an larger organization but that organization might also engage with a community or the general public and a discourse forum could obviously facilitate that kind of dialogue too. I suppose the current way of doing this is simply to set up to instances, one inward facing and one outward facing, but that would entail quite a high “wall” between those two instances, making it impossible, for example, to quote public posts in internal discussions (apart from referring to the entire post) let alone to move an internal topic into the public forum. Also, employees would have to login to two separate forums which may be confusing for some. - So, in brief, it’s not ideal.
So I’d be curious to hear
- what kind of workarounds people have developed for this kind of scanario
- what it would take in terms of plugins or so to either partially drill open a private forum or to make that wall between two instances more permeable.
See also: [Public question in private forum](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-question-in-private-forum/77245)
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 2:11오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/2 "2018-09-06T02:11:21Z")
Well the way we see it:
Categories = walls
Forums = houses
We generally recommend that if you need multiple houses, create 2 forums. If you just need to wall off content use categories.
> [@tophee](#):
>
> making it impossible, for example, to quote public posts in internal discussions (apart from referring to the entire post) let alone to move an internal topic into the public forum.
In practice we never see this problem, we have 2 instances, meta … and a private home where our internal discussion happens. If we need to quote we can do so fine in multiple ways:
> so I end up with a lot of **bacon fat** : [How to make your own bars of soap - #16 by bongly - boing - Boing Boing BBS](https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/how-to-make-your-own-bars-of-soap/127974/16)
Having your houses mixed up is risky business cause you lose out on having a proper safe place where you know that even if you pick the wrong category if you post a topic by mistake nothing terrible will happen.
The extra domain for your **private house** is a feature, and a great one.
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [9월 6, 2018, 5:54오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/3 "2018-09-06T05:54:09Z")
Come at it the other way? One of my sites is ‘semi-private’ in that some Categories are restricted to TL0. Works for us.
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### Author:  [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)
#### Post date: [1월 30, 2019, 8:15오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/4 "2019-01-30T20:15:26Z")
> [@merefield](#):
>
> One of my sites is ‘semi-private’ in that some Categories are restricted to TL0. Works for us.
Yes, but the problem is (only if that’s a problem, of course) that your membership lists, tags, groups and what not remain public.
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### Author:  [@alefattorini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alefattorini)
#### Post date: [5월 2, 2019, 12:24오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/5 "2019-05-02T12:24:51Z")
Same need here.
My forum is private clients-only but I’d like to involve also potential customers that can’t read private discussions.
I can invite them and force them to join the group “leads” but I’d like show them a specific category and specific discussions
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [5월 3, 2019, 8:24오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/7 "2019-05-03T08:24:55Z")
> [@tophee](#):
>
> that your membership lists, tags, groups and what not remain public.
And presumably the ability to see any users profile if you can see their avatar or guess their username?
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### Author:  [@Antroden](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Antroden)
#### Post date: [2월 22, 2021, 12:00오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/8 "2021-02-22T00:00:51Z")
누군가 좋은 해결책을 찾았는지 궁금합니다. 저는 전문 인사이더들이 최신 정보를 공유하는 초대 전용 커뮤니티를 운영하고 있습니다. 이 중 일부 영역은 공개적으로 열어, 인사이더가 아닌 사람들도 질문할 수 있게 하고 싶습니다. 다만, 이를 위해 인사이더 커뮤니티 멤버들에게 다른 보드에 가입하도록 요구하거나 강제하고 싶지는 않습니다.
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### Author:  [@ecki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ecki)
#### Post date: [3월 25, 2023, 5:07오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/9 "2023-03-25T17:07:52Z")
저희도 같은 필요가 있지만, 이유는 다릅니다. 뉴스가 없으면 시작 페이지가 전혀 매력적으로 보이지 않기 때문에, 공식 공지사항 중 공개된 카테고리만 표시하고, 가입 및 승인된 사용자만 볼 수 있는 토론은 표시하지 않는 것을 원합니다. 해당 위치에 대한 쓰기 권한은 필요하지 않습니다.
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### Author:  [@opcourdis](https://meta.discourse.org/u/opcourdis)
#### Post date: [5월 31, 2025, 5:40오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/10 "2025-05-31T17:40:30Z")
이 문제에 대한 해결책을 찾으신 분 계신가요?
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### Author:  [@opcourdis](https://meta.discourse.org/u/opcourdis)
#### Post date: [6월 22, 2025, 9:49오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/11 "2025-06-22T21:49:20Z")
이 스레드에는 7명이 참여해 있지만, 이 기능을 찬성하는 표는 단 1개뿐입니다. 아직 표가 남으셨다면 한 표 남겨주세요 🙂 !
@Antroden 님이 이 스레드에서 언급하신 게스트 그룹 아이디어가 정말 마음에 듭니다. 비공개 공간에 초대된 제한된 사용자 그룹이 커뮤니티의 다른 구성원들과 함께 SharePoint 스타일로 소통하고, 콘텐츠를 조회하며, 자료를 공유할 수 있는 개념이죠.
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### Author:  [@opcourdis](https://meta.discourse.org/u/opcourdis)
#### Post date: [6월 22, 2025, 10:09오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/12 "2025-06-22T22:09:50Z")
익명 사용자가 질문을 할 수 있도록 주제 내부에 문의 양식을 사용할 수 있습니다. [GitHub - jericson/discourse-contact-plugin · GitHub](https://github.com/jericson/discourse-contact-plugin)
다만 이 플러그인은 포럼이 공개되어 있어야 하지만, 적절한 설정을 통해 모든 콘텐츠의 접근을 숨기거나 비활성화할 수 있습니다.
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### Author:  [@ecki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ecki)
#### Post date: [6월 30, 2025, 5:23오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/public-category-in-private-forum/96447/13 "2025-06-30T17:23:26Z")
두 사용자 유형이 모두 가입된 상태라면, 그룹별로 카테고리를 표시할 수 있습니다. 하지만 고객이 공개 상태이거나 미로그인 상태라면, 이 기능(또는 유사한 기능)이 필요합니다.