Should I make my own groups or use the trust_levels

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Hello everyone,

Been looking into Discourse as a potential replacement for our actual solution but even after reading the documentation I’m a bit lost with trust_levels and groups.

What is the best practice?
Use the trust_levels already created or creating ourselves our own different groups and only deal with them?

Your feedback would be very appreciated, wishing you a good day.

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Hi @Jarjar , welcome to Discourse Meta!
May I know what exactly are you trying to achieve? Private categories? Categories to be viewed only by logged in users?

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Hey,

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Actually both, in every cases most of the content I want accessible to logged in users only but on top of that there will indeed be multiple private categories and channels so I’m rapidely lost with the trust_levels.
I wonder if simply removing them and doing my own groups wouldn’t be easier but it might not be the best practice, the trust_levels existing for a reason I guess ^^

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You can’t “remove” them they’re built into the entire foundation of discourse they aren’t simply pre-made groups, groups sit on top of them and all groups use the trust level system. But yes you can lock categories to either/both.

You might want to read the Trust Level guide which explains what they do, because any group you make will be reliant on this. A group is just a group of users, all of which have a Trust Level: either static (every member in the group gets the one assigned to the group), or independent where they all have whatever level they’re naturally at.

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Trust levels essentially act as a safeguard for both your new users and your community at large. A good analogy to understand them is imagining they are a stranger in your home. When they first visit you don’t know them well enough to trust them so you wouldn’t let them walk around unsupervised. And from their perspective, they haven’t been to your home before so they don’t know their way around.

Trust levels are a way that you can safely allow someone into the community in a sand-boxed way so that they don’t have access to functionality which could be problematic. They can’t PM strangers, they can’t drop spam links etc. As they spend time reading and engaging, they prove they are there for the right reasons so they get more functionality. They are now familiar enough with the forum to understand how to use it.

So leave those in place with the default settings, but remember that you can tweak those later if necessary. Then build your custom groups on top, which will dictate who can access what content on an holistic level.

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To make it accessible to logged in users only, make the category only accessible to TL0 users. Since every logged in user is a TL0, this can be done.

See, when you are a TL1, you are both a TL0 and a TL1. When a TL3, you are a TL2, 1 and 0. Therefore, making categories only accessible by TL0s allow topics in there to be private.

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Or just have login required turned on…

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I totally get that but for my user case for example rights given from TL3 are already too high and even some from TL2 I would want to remove.
I do get they were made to empower the community but it allows them to do stuff only mods should do for our user case.
I see the benefit in TL0 & TL1 but above is too much.

Does that make sense to just increase requirements for those levels so basically no one can reach them?
Sorry coming from the other Disc thing it’s a bit confusing to me and I want to make sure I get it all right and do it properly from the beginning.

As an example on disc I have:
Unverified users (would be TL0)
Verified users (would be logged in users in Discourse)
Trusted users (would be TL1)
No use of TL2 equivalent
Mods (TL3 & TL4)
Staff (TL3 & TL4)
Admins (TL3 & TL4)

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Which ones are you talking about? There are a lot of “… allowed groups” settings that allow you to customize those rights. For example, edit all topic groups if you don’t want TL3 users to be able to edit titles, categories, and tags of topics written by someone else.

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TL3:

  • Recategorize and rename topics => definitely don’t want users to do that
  • Have all their links followed (we remove automatic nofollow) => no need

TL2:

  • Use the “Invite others to this topic” button for one-click onboarding of new users to participate in topics => Definitely don’t want that
  • Invite outside users to PMs making a group PM => don’t want that too, I want PM disabled for all users.
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Change edit all topic groups

Change tl3 links no follow

There is also invite allowed groups and personal message enabled groups

I use Trust Level Permissions Reference to find the settings

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Ok so this isn’t completely stupid from me to want to do that and changing TL settings are something other people managing communities do too?

I just want to make sure I get it all right and start on a good feet instead of doing it wrong from the beginning ^^