I am seeking to replicate listserv/googlegroups functionality using discourse, and would love to have some clarification on how groups, categories and invites works. I've done some exploring on meta but am still feeling a bit confused as I set up my categories and groups and invite people to them. So bear with me as I talk through what I have learned so far.
With the mailing list/google group model, you can put someone in charge of the list and adding/inviting/managing 'subscribers'. With discourse, it appears to be a little different - people are invited to the forum or sign up themselves and only then, once they have an account, can they be added to a group that gives them the privilege to access a category. Overall the model is different and a discourse forum is a community with site-wide privileges and not just a bunch of separate groups each with its own individually managed privileges.
So the discourse workflow for a discourse site admin or moderator to set up a new group is:
- create group to be given access to a category
- create discourse category (equivalent to listname or google group) and limit access to a groiup
- invite users to discourse
- once users sign up, add them to group so they can access the category
... and the questions:
1. It appears that I can't give someone moderator privileges to only one category. Is that right?
2. Is it possible to invite someone and give them permission to groups as I invite them so they can see certain categories from the first time they log in?
