I strongly recommend trusting the opinions of the people who wrote and live in that code 
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Again, very fair! Sorry, I didn’t mean to doubt your expertise. It’s more than I keep feeling like I’m not explaining what I’d like clearly enough.
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Here’s another situation where I’m finding this frustrating:
Trouble trying to propose a common bug
Here, a user is reporting a workflow problem with the interface. It’s really troublesome for me to try to replicate this, because my always-on admin access means that I’m not constrained by the permissions that workflow depends on anyway.
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Another example case. Here, a user is noting that they are getting an unhelpful error message while trying to post to a category which it turns out they don’t have permissions to post to. Since I do have those permissions as site admin, I can’t reproduce directly.
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What’s your current workaround for the lack of this feature, @mattdm?
In the past, I’ve used a separate account with a + address to log in and see the world through non-admin eyes (bonus: since I rarely had to do that, I’d also get the activity summary periodically for that user to keep an eye on what that looks like).
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I have a test account that I log into in situations where I need to try something out, and I log into that using a private browser window. That is always possible, but I think there’s a lot of cases where I’d just notice things if my access were “regular” by default.
It also doesn’t prevent me from accidentally violating constraints I set up on purpose (like the tag rules, or posting in categories which are supposed to be read-only).
The other alternative — making my main account be a regular account and having a separate admin one — would solve that, but in practice be a hassle, and also I’d miss notifications for flags and for private messages.
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Instead of this, have you considered using the test account in a browser you don’t regularly use? Then it can just stay logged in. For example I have the following:
Chrome: Admin(my main use)
Edge: Test User
Firefox: Used to Impersonate specific users when necessary
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That works as long as there is no browser dependent issues to solve out. For me and in my world that is such fast fix than using PM as a draft container — yes, it works, kind of, but it is not nice and stylish solution for an user.
Draft question was easy: there is technical limits and can’t be done other way. Is there something similar with that question? Because if not I don’t understand why this is still open topic. I understand totally if there isn’t enough time and manpower to code it, but even then it would be nice to hear it.
My solution is opening profile of my test user and fast login that way. But because I can’t reverse back to my admin account I have to logout. That is not bigger issue, but unnecessary trip — well, DiscourseHub is somekind issue because it can’t natively use SSOs like Google, Microsoft etc.
Since this topic came up again, I split this out into a separate discussion: Make category tag rules / restrictions apply to moderators too
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This is a bit older, but since it was just linked from another discussion, I added a vote here. I think switching roles would be useful because even in the community where I am admin, I act as a regular user for probably 90% of the time - and having an interface with reduced options would improve my user experience during that time.
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This is an interesting point. Can you tell us some more about what admin options in the UI are detracting from your user experience? Maybe it’s because I am so used to it, but I don’t mind UI elements like the admin wrench and links to the admin interface and review queue.
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As an admin, it’s sometimes hard to remember which options are available to admins (as opposed to someone in TL3 or 4 or a topic starter). So if you help someone out you might be suggesting things that do not apply to them.
Additionally, the fact that an admin can access any category and topic can present a really skewed view on the world forum. About 90% of the Discourse admins I know have a @testuser123 kind of user they impersonate in order to have a “real” user experience.
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Sure, I totally agree and that’s been discussed above already.
My question to @schneeland is different. They say it detracts from their day to day user experience and I’m interested in learning more about why that is.
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For me, one day-to-day annoyance is categories in the list which I am not supposed to post to, but could. Not just the “oops” of doing that, but having so much more to search through.
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Aware this is an old topic, but this is definitely something I think I’d have a use-case for. Most of my “life” in my community is as a regular citizen, as is the case for my moderators. We have a community which is very healthy and requires little moderation. It would be really valuable to be able to “switch on” mod/admin power when we need it, and have it off most of the time (aside from notifications). This is the problem with having a separate admin/mod account: no access to notifications or flags when they do happen.
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Like some of the folks above, I handle this with an admin account open in one browser and a regular (like TL1) user account in another.
There are a couple ways to handle a dual-account setup:
A.) Your primary personal account is an admin, and you hop to the TL1 account mostly for monitoring and testing purposes.
B.) Your primary personal account is a TL1 user, and you hop to the admin account for… admin stuff.
I use approach A – my identity is an admin. (And the TL1 account is a fairly obvious fictional character who occasionally does post publicly while testing.) I operate as admin partly for the reason you stated: access to notifications or flags. Also because it really doesn’t affect how I participate as a “user” at all.
You might use approach B, though to me it sounds more inconvenient. You could call your admin account SuperSteph, so when you do put on the admin hat it doesn’t look like you’re trying to be mysterious. (Or, just go ahead and be mysterious 
)
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Yeah, neither are very satisfactory, actually. I think that what I’d want is more « friction » to access admin power with the admin account, actually.
Maybe I can use the « general admin » to grant and remove admin status to my main account, as needed? But then there is still the question of notifications… 
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Maybe I can use the « general admin » to grant and remove admin status to my main account, as needed?
Hm, honestly that sounds like more hassle & confusion than just having two stable user accounts (admin & normal) with consistent permissions and notifications.
By the time your forum goes live, you should find “admin powers” are like having all the keys to the building, not being a bull in a china shop.
The only potential issue I see here is that I coooouuuld post a topic without required tags – but I created these & know them well. (And my admin account does not let me use category-specific tags in a wrong category. If this was once possible, I guess it’s been addressed..?)
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