Hi everyone 
Is there an easy/quick way to shut down the forum or stop posting for a certain period of time? Other than changing all categories settings.
Any help would be much appreciated!
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around shutting down or temporarily disabling posting on a forum. Ahmed_Abdelbar asks how to stop posting without changing category settings. dax suggests enabling read-only mode, which allows users to view content but not interact. Ahmed_Abdelbar later finds the solution himself. dax clarifies the steps, directing users to the admin backups page to enable read-only mode, and adds that a global alert can be set to inform users the site is paused. Bathinda warns that if a user closes their window or logs out during read-only mode, they may be unable to log back in. Stephen counters this, explaining that read-only mode can be disabled via the Rails console using the command Discourse.disable_readonly_mode(Discourse::USER_READONLY_MODE_KEY).
Well, the easiest way is to setup your forum in read-only mode. This means that the site remains online and users can only read topics but can not interact (reply, open new topics, put Like etc).
Thanks Daniela can you tell me how to do that?
Nevermind! looked it up and found out.
Go to your https://your-site/admin/backups page and click the Enable read-only mode
You can also configure a global alert that tells users that the site is paused, so they stay quiet 
But (I’ve learned just now, when searching for similar posts on meta), its to be WARNED IN BIG WORDS, that once you enable this ‘Read-Only’ mode, and while experimenting or doing something, if you happen to close your (incognito) window tab, or log yourself out for any reason, even for 1 minute, THEN THERE IS NO WAY TO LOG YOU BACK IN!!
Yes there is, via the rails console:
Discourse.disable_readonly_mode(Discourse::USER_READONLY_MODE_KEY)