What is possible? Capabilities of SMF & Organization question

[adapa]

First off, I'm not sure this is the correct area to post this question since it's more of a feature/ organization issue- feel free to move/suggest another area.

I'm running 2.0.7.  it's a small but active community that is growing. The forum is for folks who go to Pop Culture conventions/Comic con's.  As such, i have cultivated Con's PR folks.

I have finally gotten one PR person to agree to answer questions on the forum.  I had thought to create a Board with posts by members that require approval so the PR guy could choose to answer or not. 

**but** I just got this from the PR guy, and i paraphrase;

'I/we can't participate in an actual named area but I certainly could answer questions of your readers from time to time. ...the organization doesn't want to have an alternative site to get questions answered but i can do it in an add-hock way. '



does anyone have any suggestions on how i could set this up?  I already have an area for emails & posts from the company. The PR guy is not very technical so it has to be dead on simple but i'm willing to do the leg work.

Maybe make the board for emails & posts from the company be an approved post area and forward the questions to the pr guy? if he chooses to answer them, approve the post?
or
start a thread in the general board, asking for questions, & if the pr guy answers move it to the board for emails & posts?

i'm looking for advice from folks who understand the capabilities of SMF

[margarett]

I can understand SMF's capabilities but I'm not sure I understand your request.

Easiest way is probably to have a dedicated board where your members post questions and that PR just answers those when he can. Pretty much like you suggested but I'm not sure if the approval is necessary.
I also have no idea what he meant with his reply, sorry.

[adapa]

no worries!  I'm struggling with this also.

what the PR guy is saying is that there can't be a dedicated board for asking questions. There's political reasons which i understand and disagree but can't fight.

Does anyone know of another way to do the same thing? <LOL> obviously, i'm frustrated.

I think i'm going to have to open up a thread for folks to ask questions in.  Is it possible to make one thread in an unrestricted board, restricted? By restricted i mean 'posts must be approved by moderator'.  Or can i only make entire boards restricted?

[margarett]

Boards only.

Can't he just be like any other member that wanders through your forum and replies to what he sees fit? And maybe your staff can flag some topics for the PR to read? Maybe PM him the post? (there is a MOD for PM'ing a post, methinks )

What's the difference between having a dedicated board and a dedicated thread? I imagine it would be the same on their end, no?

[adapa]

get this... and i think i could get this to fly... lol

If called the thread something like, "if you could ask one question, what would it be"

this is hilarious in a 'that's so silly' way -- only in social media-- but it would be a *huge* draw for my forum.
the pr guy doesn't have the time to weed through the dreg/crap posts so i've got to make it easy for him.

so my options are to have a heavily moderated, wild thread in an unrestricted board.

Or restrict a board, post the thread there, approve a valid question, make the PR guy a Moderator so he could respond then peal that exchange off.


Have i missed anything? iow, is there any other way of doing this?

responses would be pealed off into their own thread.  the question is, do i want to allow follow ups.

[margarett]

What I'm saying is that I'm not sure I understand the difference between a dedicated board and a dedicated topic. Just the mess in the second

The way I see it, you have 2 possibilities:
* Use something like the MOD I pointed above (Quote PM, check smfsimple's website) and you and your staff point the relevant topics to the PR so that he doesn't need to dig the forum looking for those
* Use something like SimpleDesk, which is a helpdesk system. Your members create a ticket, the PR replies (the ticket is "private" between author and the membergroups allowed to use the helpdesk as "supporters") and the ticket can then be converted to a topic, which will allow follow ups (via "normal" forum)

Other than that, I really have no idea...

[adapa]

thank you for re-pointing those mod's out to me.  That is precisely why i posted, to come up with more solutions to the problem.

I'll need to install both of them on my test forum & play with them to see which would be the simplest to use. 

I don't know what i'll chose to do but thank you for the suggestions!  I hadn't even considered a MOD-