Warning System Assignment Via Board Profiles

[SD-X]

One odd thing I noticed recently is that the warning system is assigned to membergroups in SMF 2.0.x through membergroup permissions...but there is no permission for it in board profile permissions. This can create a huge conflict in rights, as the membergroups either get warning system access across every board, or not at all, unless you assign the users specifically as Board Moderators.

My request for future versions of SMF is to add an additional permission to the board profile ones, allowing you to override the global permission with one on a per-board profile basis, just like how all of the other moderation rights allow you to. That way, if you assign a specific membergroup to moderate only certain boards, they can also only warn users in those certain boards, rather than on any board they have access to.

[Suki]

You can create board profile permissions and set up those profile permissions to the boards you want, that way X board will have a completely new set of permissions while Y remains untouched.

[SD-X]

You can create board profile permissions and set up those profile permissions to the boards you want, that way X board will have a completely new set of permissions while Y remains untouched.

I'm aware of this - that is what board profiles are for. The problem is that the Warning System built into SMF 2.x does not support granting usage rights for it on a per board profile basis. It's either the membergroup assigned the rights to it has the option available on all forum boards, or none at all. You can't separate it so that the permission is only available on certain boards.

[Suki]

Thats weird then, all the permissions should be available for profile permissions although, from time to time I heard people say that some permissions disappear or are not available when using profile permissions.

[SD-X]

Thats weird then, all the permissions should be available for profile permissions although, from time to time I heard people say that some permissions disappear or are not available when using profile permissions.

The board profile ones will override some of the general ones for membergroups, yes. The problem is that the Warning System was never fully integrated into this system, and I think it's likely because it's an option you can actually turn off altogether with the click of one button in the admin panel.

It almost seems like this counts as a bug too!

[Oldiesmann]

The biggest issue here is that the warning system was never meant to be as fancy or integrated as you describe - it was simply designed as a general warning system with enough flexibility that admins and such could warn users for whatever they wanted, rather than requiring the warning to be attached to a specific topic, post, etc.

It does sort of make sense to expand it in the way that you suggest, but I think that would just make things more complicated.

[Arantor]

Why would you be able to issue a warning to a user when it isn't implicitly tied to posts in the first place?

[Oldiesmann]

Why would you be able to issue a warning to a user when it isn't implicitly tied to posts in the first place?

PM spam, among other reasons.

It seems SMF already allows you to issue warnings tied to specific posts though, so maybe the warning permission should be split into two separate ones - global and board-specific. It would take a bit of work to handle that, but it could possibly be done.

[Arantor]

You're looking at it from the opposite view of the point I was trying to make

The whole point is that it is primarily tied to people, not to posts. Yes, you can issue a warning on a post, but all it does is get that message for the purposes of injecting the URL back into the warning message - the warning never actually stores that it was attached to a post in the first place. (If you send a notification to the user about it, yes, that will but only because it gets included as a link)

As a result, you can't issue a warning to a user about a post, you can only issue a warning to a user in general, thus you can't have it based on a board permission because, that's sort of the point, it isn't tied to posts in the first place...

[Oldiesmann]

You're looking at it from the opposite view of the point I was trying to make

The whole point is that it is primarily tied to people, not to posts. Yes, you can issue a warning on a post, but all it does is get that message for the purposes of injecting the URL back into the warning message - the warning never actually stores that it was attached to a post in the first place. (If you send a notification to the user about it, yes, that will but only because it gets included as a link)

As a result, you can't issue a warning to a user about a post, you can only issue a warning to a user in general, thus you can't have it based on a board permission because, that's sort of the point, it isn't tied to posts in the first place...

As I said, I've never really used the warning system (except for temporarily muting spammers here, which is done through the profile), so I didn't know exactly how that worked. Thanks for the clarification

Having said that, I can definitely understand why an improvement is needed here. I'm not sure how easy it would be to rewrite things and such, but it's definitely an idea worth exploring further.

[SD-X]

I think you guys misunderstood what I meant. On various SMF forums across the internet, the warning system is used by moderators of said forums to forum-warn users for rulebreaking.

The issue I find with the system is that the permission settings to enable it for a membergroup are global-only settings. That means if you want a membergroup to only moderate specific boards, (which is set via board profiles/board permissions), you can't grant this permission to them ONLY in those boards. The current system will either give them the ability anywhere, regardless of being Board Moderators, having board profile moderation rights, being Global Moderators, or no moderator permissions altogether, or it gives it to them no where at all. That means users can use the warning system even in boards they don't have moderation rights over.

My suggestion is to simply add a permission in the board profile/board permissions area, (just like all of the other currently available moderation rights permissions), so that membergroups can be granted Warning System permissions just on the specific boards they moderate, rather than every single board on the forum.

For example:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb187/ms-sugard-x/warningsystemboardprofileexample.png

See the last item in the list. It is just edited in there with an image editor, but it gives you a general idea of what I mean.

[Arantor]

No, we didn't misunderstand you. The point is, what you're asking for makes no sense because of how SMF works.

As I said, warnings DO NOT WORK OFF BOARDS. They work off PEOPLE. How can you make the warning system be a board permission when you have to be able to issue warnings not based on posts? (And for that matter, warnings expressly don't care about posts anyway)

In any case, board permissions cease to exist once you leave the board. Meaning you'd never, ever be able to issue a warning anyway because the warning system lives outside of boards. (It lives in the profile. And if you're there, you're not in a board. And if you can go there to issue a warning, you must be able to do it in some board. Which means it might as well be a generic permission... oh wait...)

[SD-X]

No, we didn't misunderstand you. The point is, what you're asking for makes no sense because of how SMF works.

As I said, warnings DO NOT WORK OFF BOARDS. They work off PEOPLE. How can you make the warning system be a board permission when you have to be able to issue warnings not based on posts? (And for that matter, warnings expressly don't care about posts anyway)

In any case, board permissions cease to exist once you leave the board. Meaning you'd never, ever be able to issue a warning anyway because the warning system lives outside of boards. (It lives in the profile. And if you're there, you're not in a board. And if you can go there to issue a warning, you must be able to do it in some board. Which means it might as well be a generic permission... oh wait...)

I'm not saying it should be based on a user's post, though. I'm saying that membergroups which have the right to grant said warnings shouldn't have them be *only* globally-accessible. SMF offers the ability to grant moderation rights per-board, but the warning system's access is global, and is listed by SMF's permissions itself as a moderation right. The only time I can see this being useful as a global permission is for groups with global moderation or administrative rights. It really wouldn't make sense in any other situation. I understand you're saying that SMF is coded in a different way to handle this, but remember that this suggestion is also for future versions, not current ones.

Anyway, I guess a simpler way to do this would be setting up the per-board permission to essentially "hide" access to the warning icon in posts on boards where the user doesn't have the rights to use it, (unless, of course, they had the existing global permission for it turned on for their membergroup). As for the profile, I'd assume that could be based visibly on the global right too, but it's not so much an issue as the board permissions problem. What I'm basically trying to get at is that I would like to see this system's access be restricted a bit more so you can control where membergroups can actually use it, rather than it being everywhere or no where.

Edit: Thinking about it, this could also be accomplished by inheriting it from checking if the user has specific moderation rights of a board at all that are granted through any permission settings, and giving visibility to the icon based on that, assuming the global permission is turned on. It would be a cheesy workaround, but theoretically should work fine.

[Arantor]

Yes, because redesigning a core system just because it doesn't work exactly how you want (and, to be frank, is illogical how you want it) is a great way to spend a lot of developer time.

You have absolutely no idea how much of a mess that would make it. It would be the only permission in the entire profile area that requires separate database queries just to figure out if it should be displayed. (And they're not cheap ones) And that would have to be done every single view of a profile, near enough.

I'm not saying it should be based on a user's post

I never said you did. I'm saying that's why it is what it is. And why it shouldn't be changed.

but it's not so much an issue as the board permissions problem

No, it's MORE of an issue.

I would like to see this system's access be restricted a bit more so you can control where membergroups can actually use it, rather than it being everywhere or no where.

Why? If you don't trust the people who have moderation powers to issue warnings sensibly, don't make them moderators in the first place.


I know why you think this is the way to go, for board moderators. The magical group that doesn't actually exist anywhere except as a series of phantom rules that grant that group to users expressly when they need it. (Which is why it's such a crazy-ass problem for doing what seems logical to you, but not really to anyone else who knows the guts of SMF.)

But realistically instead of fixing the symptom, the developers should really fix the real problem which is the concept of the board moderator group. Fix that problem, and crazy workaround logic like this stops being a requirement.

[SD-X]

Why? If you don't trust the people who have moderation powers to issue warnings sensibly, don't make them moderators in the first place.

It's not that I don't trust them. It's that I don't want to give them the opportunity to begin with. Even people who are great admins themselves can get angry one day and attack the entire forum. I've seen it happen many times in many places across the internet. People just stop caring sometimes, or they feel they've been cheated and seek revenge. Why give them the chance when you only want them to carry out specific operations without affecting other areas in the process?

But realistically instead of fixing the symptom, the developers should really fix the real problem which is the concept of the board moderator group. Fix that problem, and crazy workaround logic like this stops being a requirement.

I actually agree with you on that. Personally I'd love to see Board Moderators support Membergroups too so this entire situation could be solved via that, but that's another topic for another day.

[Arantor]

Your logic is still flawed.

OK, so they're limited to specific boards. That doesn't prevent them going crazy, it just limits where they go crazy. If they want to hound people off the board, they can still do that, they just have to find a post in a board they can issue a warning for.

So what if they're limited? If they're going to do something, they're still going to do it. Either they can do it or they can't, there's no half way measure no matter what you think you're limiting them from doing.

so this entire situation could be solved via that, but that's another topic for another day.

Exactly my point. Don't treat the symptom, don't burn a lot of dev time on a waste of effort when you can fix the underlying problem.

[SD-X]

Your logic is still flawed.

OK, so they're limited to specific boards. That doesn't prevent them going crazy, it just limits where they go crazy. If they want to hound people off the board, they can still do that, they just have to find a post in a board they can issue a warning for.

So what if they're limited? If they're going to do something, they're still going to do it. Either they can do it or they can't, there's no half way measure no matter what you think you're limiting them from doing.

so this entire situation could be solved via that, but that's another topic for another day.

Exactly my point. Don't treat the symptom, don't burn a lot of dev time on a waste of effort when you can fix the underlying problem.

Fixing the underlying problem is up to them, though. That doesn't mean I shouldn't suggest the idea and allow them to decide on how to implement it, even if they see a different way for doing it.

Also, at our discussion about people going crazy, maybe my example of where I would use the permissions would give you a better understanding of why I'm worried...

A forum I commonly administrate is part of a gaming community. Said gaming community has different leaders for each one of the community's servers, and the leaders are all given moderation rights over their specific boards. Server A uses Board A, Server B uses Board B, and so on, with various other cross-server boards, but that is going a bit beyond my example. Anyway, the idea is so that Server A's leaders can only moderate Board A, and Server B's leaders can only moderate Board B. If one of them goes rogue, the only damage they can cause is limited to their own boards, which makes it much easier to contain an attack. Likewise, if a user with these rights is ever hacked, it also controls what can be damaged. For this reason, I have set up Board Profiles to grant them their rights. The only issue I have, however, is controlling how they can warn users. They shouldn't be warning people outside of their own boards, which is the only place they can moderate...but a Global Moderator, as intended and designed, should be able to warn in all boards. Likewise, (and I think you mentioned this too), Board Moderators should only be able to warn users in their own boards.

I get what you mean when you say it's a bad design for such on SMF's internal workings, but hopefully future designs can change this. It is definitely a restriction to permissions I would like to see. I'm actually a bit confused why the Warning System is part of the core itself, and not built into the rest of the moderation rights' code, but I can only assume that was due to different intentions when the system was originally devised.

[Arantor]

If one of them goes rogue, the only damage they can cause is limited to their own boards, which makes it much easier to contain an attack.

For any normal forum, it would be pointless because it would have already done the damage of driving people away.

Your example is very specific - where people in one board are unlikely to be present in another.

But you fail to understand that there are consequences beyond the board. If a user is warned to the point of post moderation, that's not post moderation for their board, it's for the entire forum. If they're post banned, they're post banned (including PMs) for the entire forum.

I'm actually a bit confused why the Warning System is part of the core itself, and not built into the rest of the moderation rights' code, but I can only assume that was due to different intentions when the system was originally devised.

And my explaining this was conveniently ignored because it didn't fit in with your world view of things?

[SD-X]

Your example is very specific - where people in one board are unlikely to be present in another.

Not necessarily. The gaming community is still united overall, but the moderation per server boards is separated. I'm just speaking in terms of moderating things without them going beyond their own sections, since leaders in one server and it's respective boards are considered regular players in another. Enforcing this within the moderation rights would prevent them from using rights where they shouldn't, while still having them where they should. Other forums I have seen would probably make use of this too, such as forums that host online "projects" where they have different developers for each project on the forum, or a business forum where there are moderators for sections such as site feedback, the business' general discussion, advertisements, etc.

Essentially think of my game servers example as subdivisions within an organization, but overall they still form the same organization, just under different branches of it.

But you fail to understand that there are consequences beyond the board. If a user is warned to the point of post moderation, that's not post moderation for their board, it's for the entire forum. If they're post banned, they're post banned (including PMs) for the entire forum.

That would still make sense. If users are doing such to break the forum's rules, their punishment would be fine to apply across the entire forum. I guess you could theoretically add the ability to post-moderate/post-ban per boards, though. It seems it would be useful for forums that have boards completely separated in terms of their rules.

[Arantor]

Yes, I see exactly where you're going and having actually been on the wrong end of this in the past, I'm not convinced it would actually solve any problems without creating plenty more for you.

I will say it again, then: it is only meaningful if people are not likely to be across boards. If they are, they'll just get warned in another board. I have seen this happen. Multiple times.

The cutting down of permissions will actually encourage people to be creative if they're going to abuse it. So we're back to people who have it everywhere or nowhere.

I'm talking from experience here.

That would still make sense.

No, it doesn't, that's the point. If you can only issue warnings to actions in one board, why should the penalty extend outside that board?

What you're talking about is almost certainly never going to happen, not least because of the mess it would cause, the performance issues it would cause and the fact it's still ultimately a niche requirement. More options is not necessarily better.

If you have forums that are completely separated, separate them into individual forums and bridge them. It would be faster and cleaner than the mess that would otherwise result.


Let me put it another way. I'm currently in the middle of totally gutting SMF's warning system and building a completely new one and I don't have the restrictions that SMF's code has to contend with because I'm totally free to redesign it as I see fit and I still wouldn't implement this.