# Show categories to everyone except a specific group
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [2월 1, 2018, 7:57오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569 "2018-02-01T19:57:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@PatrickH](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PatrickH)
#### Post date: [2월 1, 2018, 7:57오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/1 "2018-02-01T19:57:42Z")
I want to add a special group to my forum.
The can only see the categories that the are member of.
Other categories (open for everyone) the can not see.
Is this possible ?
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [2월 1, 2018, 8:15오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/2 "2018-02-01T20:15:18Z")
Category permissions are additive. i.e.
See
See and Reply
See and Reply and Create
A lot can be done by setting permissions based on group membership. But it sounds like you are looking for a way to have the permissions be subtractive instead?
In other words instead of
Category - group members only, others restricted
you want
Category - others allowed, group members only restricted
If so, I know of no way to do this.
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### Author:  [@Cool\_Cool](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Cool_Cool)
#### Post date: [2월 1, 2018, 9:51오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/3 "2018-02-01T21:51:23Z")
I believe this is already possible. Just create a private message, and invite the group as a tag, you don’t need to invite everyone individually.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [2월 1, 2018, 11:49오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/4 "2018-02-01T23:49:32Z")
Wouldn’t that be similar to having a category restricted to a group except if would be more like a topic restricted to a group? If I’m understanding, what @PatrickH is wanting is not an “allow group” but a “disallow group”.
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### Author:  [@PatrickH](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PatrickH)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 6:56오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/5 "2018-02-02T06:56:19Z")
it’s similar to this: [New category permission - "cannot see"/"exclude"](https://meta.discourse.org/t/new-category-permission-cannot-see-exclude/50044?source_topic_id=79576)
i would like that very much, that you exclude groups from categories (also the posts from these categories are not visible)
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 1:22오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/6 "2018-02-02T13:22:55Z")
You should say more about your specific situation.
Categories that are visible to everyone are visible to everyone. You want to violate a tautology.
It sounds like what you really want is a separate forum for this other group.
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### Author:  [@PatrickH](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PatrickH)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 6:18오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/7 "2018-02-02T18:18:47Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> It sounds like what you really want is a separate forum for this other group.
partially true.
What i (or my members) want is to have a 'separate forum in the forum. Where the can’t see the ‘basic questions’
The best way to tell you this; I want two forums (A & B) where 1 group (G1) can login in 2 forums (A & B) and the other group (G2) must first have permission. This is the main majority of my forum, but van not have access to the complete forum.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 6:24오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/8 "2018-02-02T18:24:59Z")
Then you’ll make the g1 have access to the categories and g2 not have access.
You can control access to categories by group, so just put people in whatever group(s) is appropriate.
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### Author:  [@PatrickH](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PatrickH)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 6:37오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/9 "2018-02-02T18:37:55Z")
ok, but g1 must see the categories that are displayed in the open part (g2 is the closed part)
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 7:37오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/10 "2018-02-02T19:37:00Z")
That’s not a problem. You can assign/remove post/reply/read access to any category for any, and as many, groups as you like.
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### Author:  [@PatrickH](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PatrickH)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 8:05오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/11 "2018-02-02T20:05:57Z")
Sorry, I don’t understand that.
I know that that is possible, but it seems that I can not make it work?
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 9:20오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/12 "2018-02-02T21:20:28Z")
Can you sketch and post a rough venn diagram? I sometimes do better with visuals and maybe it could help others understand too.
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [2월 2, 2018, 10:10오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/13 "2018-02-02T22:10:02Z")
@PatrickH my suggestion would be that you set up a discourse site and start configuring the groups and categories. I think the functionality will become clear to you as you set it up.
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### Author:  [@PatrickH](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PatrickH)
#### Post date: [2월 3, 2018, 6:51오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/14 "2018-02-03T18:51:44Z")
I try to make a diagram.
Maybe i make it to difficult (or the VIP customers)
Is it possible to do the following:
No categories viewed bij trustlevel but by groups ?
The main thing is that the open forum must be visible to everyone (exept some VIP customers)
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [2월 3, 2018, 7:16오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/15 "2018-02-03T19:16:37Z")
Thanks, I think I understand better now.
If I have a forum with categories that correspond to groups something like:
- low
- medium low
- medium
- medium high
- high
In the current scheme it is easily possible to restrict access to the higher categories from each of the lower groups until certain criteria is met. But higher groups always have access to lower categories.
What you are wanting is a way to not allow higher groups access to lower categories.
In other words, as a contrived example, if a lower group was “associates” and a higher group was “doctorate”, the AS would be lost in PHD topics so should not have access, and the PHD would have no interest in AS topics.
AFAIK, the closest thing to this would be to Mute the AS category from the PHD group. However, the Mute feature is not about permissions, it could help reduce the “noise” of the muted categories, but it would not prevent access to them.
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### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [2월 3, 2018, 7:46오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/16 "2018-02-03T19:46:29Z")
Categories 123:
- everyone: full
Categories 456: 🔒
- trust\_level\_2: full
- vip\_b: full
- staff: full
Categories VIP: 🔒
- vip\_b: full
- vip\_a: full
- staff: full
vip\_a Muted Categories: 123
With this setup, vip\_a users are not prevented from seeing the 123 categories if they are linked to them or search them out, but they will not show up on the homepage. “Everyone” really does mean everyone - they could just log out, after all.
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### Author:  [@D8vid](https://meta.discourse.org/u/D8vid)
#### Post date: [5월 21, 2019, 11:50오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/17 "2019-05-21T23:50:40Z")
Linking to a reply with similar use case example, but where exclusions (via group memberships) would be voluntary (opt-in), desired, and non-hierarchical.
> [@Everyone permissions + "See" permissions](https://meta.discourse.org/t/everyone-permissions-see-permissions/101613/11):
>
> I’ve been reading many topics on this issue, and have a use case where the ability to exclude a group from access (e.g. to a category) would be most useful, in this fashion: The use case is a Discourse instance dedicated to a fan community (for a multi-book & multi-season TV production) where ‘spoilers’ are an issue; members would like the ability to opt-out of seeing topics belonging to categories that are likely to contain spoilers.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [10월 5, 2022, 9:02오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-categories-to-everyone-except-a-specific-group/79569/19 "2022-10-05T09:02:13Z")