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Admin "spy mode?"

Started by Elijah Bliss, December 30, 2004, 07:26:14 PM

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Piggie

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is the complete answer, but I'm pretty sure thats it's the nearest thing: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=37029.0

N3RVE

[unknown] hasnt said a word!
Ralph "[n3rve]" Otowo
Former Marketing Co-ordinator, Simple Machines.
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Fatality-

the easier way is to just create another account to surf the forum when you are taking a break.

metallica48423

what kind of 'hidden' are we talking about? can someone explain what this should be doing?
Justin O'Leary
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Piggie

#24
Unless I'm mistaken, there would be no indication of the Admin being logged in on who's online, in their profile, or with their posts in threads. Additionally, it will not indicate in users online that anyone is 'hidden'. If the forum is set up so that members cannot set themselves as hidden, then 'hidden' can only mean 'hidden admin'. This defeats the object, surely?

Oldiesmann

Even if you prevent SMF from showing hidden users at all, users could still figure it out by looking at your profile to see when you were last online, and faking that would prevent other features from working properly (notably the "unread posts since last visit" feature, and possibly also the "mark as read" stuff).
Michael Eshom
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Father Luke

Quote from: Elijah Bliss on December 30, 2004, 07:26:14 PM
Is there a way were an admin can be hidden from everyone including Global Moderators?


Well, there is this:

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=253702.0

--
Okay,
Father Luke

OnemanDH

#27
This subject is exactly why I made the account here. (First post so I can't start a request thread).

As has been said already, the "Last Online" part of profiles is the dead giveaway.

What I would like is an option to hide/show "Last Online" on a profile.

The option to use a different account is there ofc but then the user (me in this case) can't check messages or do other things on the main account, so it's not really a viable solution.

As admin I would like to be able to be able to choose when to admin and when to be just a user, and the option to hide "Last Online" would free me from the "but I saw you online and you didn't do X/Y/respond/edit etc etc".


Edit: to clarify, I recently took over as admin on a board with 1.1.4 and as yet I am far from familiar with SMF. An upgrade to 2.0 is in the pipeline but not an immediate happening.

LPChip

The best option still is to work with more users.

You can create a user and even give it admin privledges without it being seen as admin by the system.

To do this, make sure that the primairy usergroup isn't set to administrator. You don't even need to set a primairy usergroup. To do this, login using the admin account and edit the profile of your other account.

Go to Account related settings, and click the link: show additional membergroups. Its important to set the admin here instead of the combobox above. This will hide that you have admin privledges from the users but you'll still get all options, like an admin. Do note, that in the admin panel, you will be listed as admin. If a global moderator doesn't have any access rights to the admin panel, they will simply not know. If its a problem to be listed there, then simply create a new usergroup that has the same rights as the admingroup and place your subuser in there. Also, it can reveal you having admin status if you're in the admin panel, and someone clicks the "who's online link". It'll probably say: User location is unknown or hidden.

OnemanDH

#29
That's a good workaround for the admin but unfortunately doesn't resolve the issue of using the main account and having access to all info contained therein such as PMs etc.

Surely the show/hide option is "easily" changed/incorporated and thereafter available to all users?

Edit: (I know this thread is re: admin spy mode but I was unable to make a new thread on this subject so threw it in here)

Rumbaar

You might want to try this mod:
Super Admin
It adds a lot of features that can hide information, etc.
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gbsothere

Someone helped me with this once and it works beautifully for me.  I just had to remember to mark my status hidden in my profile.  I can also keep my test accounts hidden and no one can tell when I'm online testing the forum from a user's perspective (going into the test account as the admin and hiding that online status as well).  This is where it was resolved for me (and thanks, again, to Gazmanafc):

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=303764


When I'm online, there's not even a reference to "hidden user" at the bottom of the forum page.   :)
My apologies, but I am taking a break from accepting PM requests for support.  If I am not currently assisting you, please do not ask as long as this notice is posted.  Thank you.

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A reminder about admin / ftp passwords etc.

Blinker

gbsothere - thanks for posting that, and thanks to gazmanafc for providing the only semi-workable solution to this problem.

So far, it's the only quick and easy way to remove the (1 Hidden) from the boardindex that I've found. SuperAdmin caused too many issues for me, plus I want to log my time online and it prevents that in spy mode.

gazmanafc's solution still has a couple of issues though - on the boardindex it still shows the total number of users online.

For e.g. in testing I am logged in as myself with my main admin account and as a regular user with my test account (in a different browser). In the past (before I found this workaround) it would say "0 Guests, 2 Users, (1 Hidden)". Now it says "0 Guests, 2 Users", with only one user, being my test account, showing up. As far as I'm concerned, it defeats the purpose of removing the hidden user reference as it's still obvious I'm logged in as admin.

The other issue is with SimplePortal. I have a "Who's Online" block on the portal page and it still shows Hidden: 1,  Users: 2. I'm guessing it's because it doesn't pull that data from the boardindex template the way the forum index does.

Any ideas guys? Is what I'm asking even possible?

Antechinus

You'd have to ask Simple Portal how they code their blocks.

It should be possible to do what you want with a conditional statement. Basically something like if($context('user_aint_hidden')) echo ' etc. (and yes I did just make that up)
Do you still need help with this?

Tamsin

I would like to ask gazmanafc a question. I am after the same as everyone else on this thread ie hiding 'hidden' status from forum members. I am using Orangeline theme. Could you tell me what do I need to modify?

I am also keen to exclude admin from appearing in stats tables such as the number of hours logged in etc. Do you know of any way of achieving this?

Arantor

The modifications as outlined in the first couple of posts would hide the admin from other members - and don't generally touch the theme.

If you require something more please advise.

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