Category group moderation before global mod promotion

Why this can grow a startup

A growing community usually has a few people who clearly know one area well but should not own the entire forum yet. Discourse's category group moderation lets the operator test that responsibility in a narrow lane. A group can review flagged content in one category, and category moderator improvements expanded that role into real operating authority such as closing topics, pinning answers, and editing category descriptions. That creates a better path from contributor to owner, while keeping moderation close to the subject matter that person actually understands.

Company example

Discourse lets admins enable category group moderation, assign one group to a category's moderation section, and later gives those category-specific moderators powers like solved marking, closing, archiving, moving posts, pinning, and adding staff notices within that category.

Source and metric

Source: Discourse Meta: Category Group Review/Moderation

Discourse limits category group moderation to one group per category and exposes a dedicated Needs Review queue plus category-specific moderation actions.

Source discovered: May 30, 2026