The discussion is about restricting replies to a certain group of users on a Discourse forum. richy_zimmerman wants to create a forum where students can create topics but only reply to their own topics, while consultants can reply to any post and create topics. merefield explained that this is not possible out of the box due to the way permissions work in Discourse, but a plugin could achieve this.
richy_zimmerman clarified that he would have multiple categories with subcategories and two user groups with different permissions. merefield confirmed that this is not possible without a plugin and provided a screenshot of the out-of-the-box group permission sets.
richy_zimmerman decided to look for a custom plugin and posted in the marketplace. merefield guaranteed that a plugin could be made to achieve this and encouraged sticking with Discourse.
richy_zimmerman asked for an estimate of the plugin’s cost, and merefield offered to PM his take on it. pfaffman explained that changing the permission level from category to topic would be difficult and estimated the cost to be at least $5,000.
However, JammyDodger suggested that the Discourse Restricted Replies plugin may be able to achieve the desired functionality.
I want to make a forum for students and consultants.
Students: can create topics, only reply to their OWN topic they’ve created
Consultants: can reply to any post, can create topics
is this possible? The whole value add of our forum would actually be that you can ONLY get help from consultants, similar to the Q&A board on Avvo.com
Permissions are at the category level. You want them at the topic level. Changing that will be very difficult.