User log

[b0x]

What I would really love to see in a future version of SMF is the possibility to create some sort of a detailed user log. Sometimes it would be really handy to have a log of what a certain user has been doing on your forum while you're not watching. I realise logging all users is unfeasable and I'm not really interested in that, but it would be great if you could 'tag' trouble makers for extra logging.

An example:

• 22/02/2008 11:00 user x created topic 123
• 22/02/2008 11:21 user x logged out
• 22/02/2008 13:27 user x logged in
• 22/02/2008 13:30 user x read topic 123
• 22/02/2008 13:33 user x sent a PM to user y
• 22/02/2008 13:42 user x edited topic 123
• 22/02/2008 14:16 user x deleted topic 123
• 22/02/2008 14:29 user x logged out

Anyway, something along these lines.

[Jade Elizabeth]

I want too!!
The User tracker tells you what topics and boards...but you know.

But to be honest I think this breaks privacy ...
I mean, I wouldn't wanna be tracked like an animal, It makes me paranoid at the thought that my host could do that.

[rsw686]

At the very least user's should be logged when they delete or edit their posts.

[Jade Elizabeth]

At the very least user's should be logged when they delete or edit their posts.

They are . Admin > moderation log
As far as I know, everyone goes on there.
(All my active members are in special membergroups so I can't be sure).

[HecKel]

Yes, you can see that there But the problem is that feature "mix" all the logs, it is very hard to find some actions in one specific topic.

Sometimes is usefull to know who delete/make sticky/etc one specific topic and we can't find that easily...

[Jade Elizabeth]

Yes, you can see that there But the problem is that feature "mix" all the logs, it is very hard to find some actions in one specific topic.

Sometimes is usefull to know who delete/make sticky/etc one specific topic and we can't find that easily...

Sounds like a mod request. If this were to be a feature it could get very advanced, SMF is supposed to be simple to use . I don't disagree with you as to it being handy. I want something that lets me SEE edits, like wikipedia does, but it's more of a mod request, and that's what I posted it as .

The user tracker has an Admin Actions section which tells you what and where...I could have sworn it had moderation too. You can request it if you want

[Kimmie]

At the very least user's should be logged when they delete or edit their posts.

They are . Admin > moderation log
As far as I know, everyone goes on there.
(All my active members are in special membergroups so I can't be sure).

This log only records what your moderators/admins do on the site - not regular members. It also wont record anything unless you turn the feature on in Admin CP > Features & Options > Log moderation actions

I think that having the ability to track users like described would be somewhat of a privacy issue. You can always use the Profile User Action mod which shows on their profile the last thing they did. If their sending pms to people that they shouldnt be, turn on the feature to allow pm reporting Admin CP > Features and Options > Enable reporting of personal messages- or educate your members on how to block others from sending them pm's. You can also do other things such as

22/02/2008 11:00 user x created topic 123 - your gonna know this anyways
22/02/2008 11:21 user x logged out - users online today mod
22/02/2008 13:27 user x logged in - users online today mod
22/02/2008 13:30 user x read topic 123 - not sure why you need this option
22/02/2008 13:33 user x sent a PM to user y - turn on reporting of pms
22/02/2008 13:42 user x edited topic 123 - your gonna know this because the topic will show as having a "new" post again
22/02/2008 14:16 user x deleted topic 123 - just dont let members delete topics
22/02/2008 14:29 user x logged out - already listed.

[Jade Elizabeth]

22/02/2008 13:30 user x read topic 123 - not sure why you need this option

To make sure important topics are read perhaps?

22/02/2008 13:33 user x sent a PM to user y - turn on reporting of pms

I had an issue with someone sending PM's to a minor who didn't want them. This person didn't want to use the report function because they thought it would let the sender know.
Also, it would be handy to be able to track where staff PM's are going.

22/02/2008 14:16 user x deleted topic 123 - just dont let members delete topics

OR check the recycling bin


But again, it IS a privacy issue. And although most of this stuff (if not all) is stored in the DB, distributing methods to collect and view it might give SMF a bad name. If I was aware I was being tracked on a forum I would leave it. If I knew there was a mod out for that forums software I would probably still leave.
I mean, it is good and handy if it isn't abused and it's used for the right reasons, but with such a huge potential for abuse it could come to be quite dangerous to some users.

[HecKel]

Yes, you can see that there But the problem is that feature "mix" all the logs, it is very hard to find some actions in one specific topic.

Sometimes is usefull to know who delete/make sticky/etc one specific topic and we can't find that easily...

Sounds like a mod request. If this were to be a feature it could get very advanced, SMF is supposed to be simple to use . I don't disagree with you as to it being handy. I want something that lets me SEE edits, like wikipedia does, but it's more of a mod request, and that's what I posted it as .

The user tracker has an Admin Actions section which tells you what and where...I could have sworn it had moderation too. You can request it if you want

<spoiller> I was trying to make something like that..., but I stoped developing due the exams season </spoiller>

[Kimmie]

22/02/2008 13:30 user x read topic 123 - not sure why you need this option
To make sure important topics are read perhaps?

What I do is if I have a topic that everyone needs to read, say like the Site Rules members are told to "Read & Respond". Thats how I can keep up with who has and who hasnt read it. 

I had an issue with someone sending PM's to a minor who didn't want them. This person didn't want to use the report function because they thought it would let the sender know.
Also, it would be handy to be able to track where staff PM's are going.

All they have to do is block the person that was sending them the pms.

Believe me, if one of your staff sends a pm that they shouldnt, the member getting it will let you know.  . I also think that monitoring staffs pms would be a violation of their privacy as well. I put them in that position because I trust them. Believe you me, if they do something they shoulnt - their history..lol.

22/02/2008 14:16 user x deleted topic 123 - just dont let members delete topics
OR check the recycling bin

yeah that would work in some cases. On my site - only my staff can delete posts/topics and there are specific areas set up to move things to depending on what it is they are removing. [/quote]

But again, it IS a privacy issue. And although most of this stuff (if not all) is stored in the DB, distributing methods to collect and view it might give SMF a bad name. If I was aware I was being tracked on a forum I would leave it. If I knew there was a mod out for that forums software I would probably still leave.
I mean, it is good and handy if it isn't abused and it's used for the right reasons, but with such a huge potential for abuse it could come to be quite dangerous to some users.

I totally agree.

[b0x]

First off... Thanks everyone for your input.

I think that having the ability to track users like described would be somewhat of a privacy issue.

Why would it be a privacy issue? I have access to the server logs and can get all the information I need from there, but it's just very tedious. I agree though that you should warn your users that detailed logs are being kept. It's not like I'm going to read their PM's or anything.

You can always use the Profile User Action mod which shows on their profile the last thing they did. If their sending pms to people that they shouldnt be, turn on the feature to allow pm reporting [...]

I know I can do that and my users can report PMs but that's not the point.

Admin You can also do other things such as

22/02/2008 11:00 user x created topic 123 - your gonna know this anyways

I know, but I want to see this action in relation to all the other things they have been doing on the forum. I don't want to get information X from the user's last posts page, information Y from Who's Online and information Z from the server logs.

22/02/2008 11:21 user x logged out - users online today mod
22/02/2008 13:27 user x logged in - users online today mod

Again, see my previous remark. For some users I want this information on one page together with all the other information.

22/02/2008 13:30 user x read topic 123 - not sure why you need this option

I know why I need this option. Maybe I should have been more elaborate in my first post. Imagine the following scenario:
User X has a business selling pain killers. User Y creates topic 123 saying she's got these massive headaches and asks others what she can do to get rid of them. User X reads topic 123, sends her a PM saying he's had the same problem and after years he's finally found a way to get rid of them using the pain killers he's conveniently selling. User Y buys the pain killers and because she thinks users X was only trying to help her, she doesn't report the PM. If I have logs that show that user X read topic 123 started by user Y, sends her a PM etc. it would help me greatly to keep my forum 'clean'. Now, my forum is not a medical one and the issue is a little bit different, but in principal the issue is the same.

The bottom line is that I don't want businesses to abuse my forum to get more clients or to make the business look better than it is. How easy is it to contact a content customers and ask them to write something fantastic about their business in a topic that has a critical note about them? Anyway, if you don't need a feature like this that's fine but I would love it!

[Jade Elizabeth]

What I do is if I have a topic that everyone needs to read, say like the Site Rules members are told to "Read & Respond". Thats how I can keep up with who has and who hasnt read it. 

On my forum, that may not work . See...EVERYONE (hyperbole) replies to posts, and you lose track in your head. I wouldn't mind a "who hasn't" read the topic thing lol. Then I could just spam the users who haven't read it and make out it was a global thing . Though now that I have an Admin Advisory group who READ and REPLY to ALL announcements and feedback topics, and even post feedback regularly I'm all good, and I don't care about the others. As long as they're telling me how they feel, and they're all ages and backgrounds, then I've got a good "random sample" of what the forum wants/needs/likes/dislikes. I also got me some testers . So that group totally eradicated a whole bunch of stress. They HAVE to read announcements, and they signed off on it .

All they have to do is block the person that was sending them the pms.

Believe me, if one of your staff sends a pm that they shouldnt, the member getting it will let you know.  . I also think that monitoring staffs pms would be a violation of their privacy as well. I put them in that position because I trust them. Believe you me, if they do something they shoulnt - their history..lol.

Well I have a staff agreement, it wouldn't be an invasion if they agreed to it

[Kimmie]

Theres no way I wouldnt agree to an agreement like that nor would I ever consider telling my staff that in order to be staff they have to agree to let me basically spy on them. In addition to that, nor would I want to be a member of a forum that I knew was tracking my/everyones "every move" - including my pms - basically spying on folks. Theres a reason why they are called Personal Messages. . The key word is "Personal". With a mod/default feature like this, wayyyy to many things can go wrong when its abused. "When" because its not a matter if, anyone with that kind of capability would eventually abuse it.

[Jade Elizabeth]

Theres no way I wouldnt agree to an agreement like that nor would I ever consider telling my staff that in order to be staff they have to agree to let me basically spy on them. In addition to that, nor would I want to be a member of a forum that I knew was tracking my/everyones "every move" - including my pms - basically spying on folks. Theres a reason why they are called Personal Messages. . The key word is "Personal". With a mod/default feature like this, wayyyy to many things can go wrong when its abused. "When" because its not a matter if, anyone with that kind of capability would eventually abuse it.

You can already read PM's without a mod.
And I wasn't saying I would do that to my staff, cause I wouldn't.
Here's my moderators agreement form...with explanations...

THIS IS WHAT YOU SAY TO ANY USER WHO IS NOT A MODERATOR (OR ADMINISTRATOR) AND THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL DO;

I WILL NOT EDIT A USERS POST UNLESS

• USER USED WRONG CODING, I WILL FIX IT
• USER POSTED PERSONAL INFORMATION, OR ENDANGERED SOMEONES LIFE AS FITTED TO THE RULES, I WILL REMOVE THE TEXT AND PM ADMINISTRATOR THE REMOVED TEXT WITH LINK TO THE POST I CUT IT FROM
• USER FLAMED OR BULLIED, I DO AS ABOVE, REMOVING ENTIRE TEXT IN THIS CASE

I WILL NOT EDIT ANY POSTS BY "UNKNOWN" OR A GUEST, ANY ADMINISTRATORS POSTS, OR ANY POSTS FOUND IN THE PRIVATE BOARDS (ADMIN ADVISORY ETC) OR I WILL BE IN DEEP DEEP DEEP DEEP TROUBLE!!

We have an account called "unknown" where users can post in the help with life section so others cannot see who posted...The posting anonymously mod wouldn't work for us.

I WILL NOT DELETE A USERS POST UNLESS

• USER POSTED IT TWICE
• USER POSTED AN UNAPPROVED ADVERTISEMENT

I WILL NOT DELETE POSTS FROM RECYCLING BIN <IF I AM GRANTED ACCESS TO SUCH A PLACE


I WILL NOT EDIT A USERS POST WITHOUT

• PLACING A REASON IN THE REASON FOR EDITING BOX
• IF TEXT WAS REMOVED PLACING "{TEXT REMOVED, ADMINISTRATOR NOTIFIED}" ON POST AND SENDING CUT TEXT TO ADMINISTRATOR THROUGH PM WITH A LINK TO THE POST

I WILL LOG IN AT LEAST 3 TIMES A WEEK (RADIO DJ IS ONCE A WEEK) TO MAKE SURE USERS ARE SAFE, HAPPY, AND OKAY

I WILL MAKE A MINUMUM OF 7 POSTS A WEEK IF I AM A MODERATOR AND 3 IF IM A DJ <other forums have 6 posts per day, this is 1 a day...you need to be known on the forums so people will turn to you

Moderators need to be around on my forum, and they need to be known. My forum is the sort of forum where users are seeking help/advice and they need to know the mods are there for them if anything goes wrong. Also, the post/login thing isn't enforced, it's PREFERRED. The mods know that.

I WILL WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

I WILL ANSWER ALL PM'S TO ME, BUT PM'S REQUESTING HELP (WITH THE FORUM) CAN HAVE THE ANSWER POSTED IN THIS TOPIC WITH A LINK SENT BACK TO THE USER, USERS ASKING FOR WEBSITE HELP CAN BE FORWARDED TO THE ADMINISTRATOR

Also not enforced, it's not really important, it's just preferred.

I KNOW THE FORUM RULES LOCATED HERE


I KNOW ALUNDRA IS THE ADMINISTRATOR, AND I KNOW SHE CAN CHANGE THESE RULES AT ANY TIME....AND I AM AWARE THAT HOBO IS ALSO AN ADMINISTRATOR



[blink]IF I DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, I WILL RESIGN MY MODERATORSHIP SO USERS MAY BE BETTER SERVED[/blink]

The blink thing is BBC. Awesome mod that.
I have to revamp the agreement soon. And actually label the preferred stuff. But so far no one has had a problem with it, They see the why behind it. And I haven't had any problems at all. Moderators don't often need to do anything to be honest, and the only mods I have are online every day so they don't have to worry about that...Especially since they all average 10-40 posts a day as of the past couple of months. It used to be 5-13 so our activity has boosted .

But yeah. My forum is more of a social thing. People talk about themselves and such. We have a positive reputation, and we all want to keep that .
But I wouldn't read my staff/member PM's. That's a big no no for me...Like putting ads on your website , I'm just against it.

[b0x]

In addition to that, nor would I want to be a member of a forum that I knew was tracking my/everyones "every move" - including my pms - basically spying on folks. Theres a reason why they are called Personal Messages.

The key word is "Personal". With a mod/default feature like this, wayyyy to many things can go wrong when its abused. "When" because its not a matter if, anyone with that kind of capability would eventually abuse it.

Are we still talking about the feature I was asking for? Like I said before, I'm not asking for the abillity to read PMs. I'm not interested in that whatsoever.

It's quite interesting you say you don't want to be part of a forum that tracks your every move. Have you ever had a look at your server logs? The feature I'm after only gathers the already available information on one page, that's all.

[Jade Elizabeth]

In addition to that, nor would I want to be a member of a forum that I knew was tracking my/everyones "every move" - including my pms - basically spying on folks. Theres a reason why they are called Personal Messages.

The key word is "Personal". With a mod/default feature like this, wayyyy to many things can go wrong when its abused. "When" because its not a matter if, anyone with that kind of capability would eventually abuse it.

Are we still talking about the feature I was asking for? Like I said before, I'm not asking for the abillity to read PMs. I'm not interested in that whatsoever.

It's quite interesting you say you don't want to be part of a forum that tracks your every move. Have you ever had a look at your server logs? The feature I'm after only gathers the already available information on one page, that's all.

Yeah, but what I understand Kimmie's point of view. She knows the information is there, she just doesn't want to give someone a way to find it, and use it against her. There are A LOT of manipulative and nasty admins out there who will abuse such a feature.
It's more of a mod request anyway, not many admins need/want this, so it wont add to the functionality of SMF for most.
However, I have requested that sort of log in the past, and I think it would be great to have one if something went wrong. It's just the potential for abuse that makes me think twice.

[Kimmie]

Your agreement doesnt look too bad.

A mod for this - I agree would be the better approach to it - instead of having it as a default feature.

[Jade Elizabeth]

Your agreement doesnt look too bad.

A mod for this - I agree would be the better approach to it - instead of having it as a default feature.

We don't want to bog down SMF now do we?