Understand Guest Posting Capabilities and Restrictions

QCLF guest participation is intentionally narrow. A signed-out visitor can submit only a Traditional Discussion Topic or a permanent Message when guest posting is enabled for that location and CAPTCHA passes.

Guest identity is not a Joomla account: QCLF requires a display name and valid email, stores the email as private moderation/abuse metadata, and renders the public contribution using the guest-facing identity rather than exposing the email address.

What Guests Can Do

  • Create a Traditional Discussion Topic when global/Section/Category guest policy and Guest Topics allow it.
  • Post a permanent Message to an eligible Discussion Topic when Guest Messages/Replies are enabled.
  • Use the permanent rich-text path subject to sanitization, content filtering, link/mention limits, duplicate detection, and guest posting delay.
  • Submit immediately as approved or enter Pending Approval depending on the effective guest-approval policy.

What Guests Cannot Do

  • Create or participate in Live Chat, Watch Party, or Live Broadcast sessions.
  • Upload attachments.
  • Create polls or vote in polls.
  • Add reactions.
  • Follow Topics or Categories or use personalized Following/Unread/notification preferences.
  • Use signed-in-only account personalization or member moderation actions.

Guest Identity Requirements

The display name is normalized and limited to 80 characters and must contain at least two characters. The email must be syntactically valid and no longer than 255 characters. Guest pacing and duplicate-post checks key off the normalized email so repeated anonymous submissions cannot simply bypass those controls by changing the display name.

Pending Approval Stays Out of Public Surfaces

When approval is required, the guest Topic/Message is stored as pending. Normal Topic/reply lookups, public lists, Search, counts, and standard new-content notifications require approved state, so pending guest content remains a moderation item until approved.

Community Discussion

Want to compare forum workflows, share practical QCLF tips, or discuss how other Joomla site owners use this feature? Visit the QC Live Forum Community. For private support, bug reports, account-specific entitlement problems, or feature requests, use the QuantaCade support system.