News:

SMF 2.1.4 has been released! Take it for a spin! Read more.

Main Menu

Mod Request: Anonymous Boards

Started by NoRad, January 08, 2005, 09:21:31 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

NoRad

I have created a board on my site that is for advice. I'd like a checkbox available in that forum for the user to be listed as anonymous. Ideally, the moderators and admin should not be able to see the information about this user unless digging into the IP address. I want people to feel comfortable asking advice for very personal matters, and the only way to do that is via anonymous posting.

I'm thinking this feature should be available on the permissions list specific to a board. Care would need to be taken to make sure that if you click somebody's profile it doesn't show the anonymous post in their most recent posts etc. I also want to emphasize that this is an optional feature for specific boards, both for the initial poster and the replies as well (ie. if somebody asked about a rape incident and another person replies with advice that indicates they may have gone through this experience they might want to be anonymous as well).

Thantos

Would the following work for you?
Have a user setup called Anonymous and basically on that board all posts are made to appear to be from that user?

Then basically there would be no record that a particular person made the post, only an IP address.

NoRad

Hmmm are you saying that I have an anonymous user and that they just log in as that user or we do something in the php code to make posts in that area appear as the anon user?

Thantos

What I was thinking is that in the board's settings you check a box to make it an anon board and then you select who the "anon" user is.  Then modify Post2 so that when they actually post a message it changes the user to the anon user prior to the database insertion.

NoRad

I think that sounds like it would work. I'm fine with the whole board being anonymous, but I like the idea of having it as optional because some people that are helpful might want to establish a reputation for being helpful.

Peter Duggan

Quote from: Radianation on January 08, 2005, 09:21:31 PM
Care would need to be taken to make sure that if you click somebody's profile it doesn't show the anonymous post in their most recent posts etc.

Just wondering if you've also considered the possibility of posters still being identifiable through their presence online, the times of the anonymous posts and creative use of 'action=who'?

NoRad

Not really because I'm not a master at SMF yet, but this is good to know.

Peter Duggan

OK, so let's just suppose I'm really nosey and sit clicking Who's Online all night. And I see stuff like

Radianation     01:57:44 AM     Posting in PM Hack.

(NB This was a fortuitous example!)

and decide to follow it up, does it really matter if it says 'anonymous' by the time I read it?

Since the info on who's replying to/quoting/viewing topics or even just viewing that board could all be misused, I'd suggest that (at the very least) you might have to consider disabling these stats altogether.

NoRad

Hmmm Depends on the size of the website and how nosey the users are. I think that a basic anonymous feature would be suitable for most sites. If it was a more professional services style site I would expect those features to be disabled, but for ours I think that a simple notice that while it appears anonymous on the surface, that with some digging people can find out (so if it's that top secret don't post ) etc..

Thantos

Just thinking about the feature you want:
Ok so in the board settings have a simple checkbox that would make the board an anonymous board.
Then create a checkbox in the full post editor window that would allow them to post under their real username.  If they don't check it then it'll post as Anonymous.

I haven't looked at the code at the code for the action=who but I wonder if it would be possible to have it display the "Nothing that you can see" message when they do anything in that board.  Then anyone looking at it wouldn't be able to tell if they were just reading or if they posted a reply.

I was thinking that instead of having an anonymous account just basically do it like a guest poster would but intead of the name guest it would be anonymous.

NoRad

There you go. We're on to something

Thantos

Ok here is a beta version.  It does not cover the action=who problem but it does provide the anonymous functionality.  I have it on my test board and it appears to work.  Only restriction is that Anonymous can't be in the reserved words.
What it basically does is that if the board is a anony board and they don't check the box to post unanon it sets the username and name to Anonymous, blanks out the email and avatar, and sets the ID_MEMBER to 0.

Please let me know if you run into any problems.  If I don't hear about any problems in the next couple days I'll submit it to the mod listing.

Temp offsite link to mod

NoRad

I'll test tonight. Do I need to modify my custom themes?

Thantos

#13
Ok I had to make some changes to the package.  I also added in the action=who protection.  Though it doesn't offer a lot of protection.

There are only two theme changes, one to ManageBoards.template.php and one to Post.template.php

If you have multiple themes that change these files you'll probably have to manually make the change.  In both case its just one find and replace.  It also adds some text to the bottom of ManageBoards.english.php and Post.english.php in the languages folder.  Feel free to change the text to fit your needs.

Heres the new link

Tony Reid

I was thinknig about this idea a couple of days ago - good to see im not the only one thinking this is good idea ;D

Thanks for the mod - I'll try it when I do my next batch of modding ;)

Tony Reid

NoRad

I didn't get a chance to implement it last night. I'll provide feedback as soon as I can get it going.

zillion

Dunno if I'm picking you up wrong, but wouldn't a simpler solution be just to make a Board where Guests can post?  You can word the Board "description" to tell people to log-out (or not log-in!) if they want their post to be anonymous.

Of course, that means any idiot can post anything, which is perhaps something you're trying to avoid.

Thantos

I think the point of it was to make it as easy as possible for the users.  Plus with this mod you can still use normal permission rules.
IMO requiring a user to logout to access a feature is pretty poor.

NoRad

I think the mod is the way to make this happen. From what it looks like we already have a working copy. Thank you.

Thantos

So no problems with the installation?  Thats what I was mainly worried about :)

Advertisement: