Requiring new members posts to be moderated.

[bobm01793]

Have just installed 2.0.4 and have been trying to set up a routine where new members have their first five posts moderated.

I have found various topics on this on the forum but I seem to have got myself in a knot.

I have the group regular members which originally allowed members to post and I did read that this setting would overule anything which was set anywhere else. I have therefore set it to require moderation for all posts.

I have the post-based groups called new members, Jnr Members etc.  Now I assume I have to modify all except new members so they can post without moderation and overide the regular members section - however these groups do not seem to have the same range of tick boxes to select options as regular members. 

I am obviously missing a trick here.

Any pointers gratefully received.

(The fact I have come from zero to a forum which "could" be launched in a primative form inside 18 hours is a testament to how how good this software is - I just need to polish it!)

[kat]

Welcome to the ol' nuthouse forum, Bob!

You need to enable "Post moderation", first, under "Core features".

Once you've done that, for your new members group, go to Admin>Permissions and click "Permissions" beside the group name.

Scroll down to the "Topics" section.

Even though you're new, to this, I bet you can figure-out the rest.

[Arantor]

I wouldn't be so sure, to be honest.

Post moderation is one of the nastiest things to configure - so bad I ripped it out entirely and rewrote it in my own stuff.

Reposting my own guide to it.

Let me explain the problem of doing this on a fresh SMF install, and you're welcome to join in at home. Today's challenge: configure it so that regular users don't have moderation but new users with up to and including 5 posts are moderated.

There are, in fact, two ways to do this, both of which are convoluted.

1. Turn on post moderation in Core Features.
2. Making sure that the 0-post count group is left alone, create a new post count group that requires 5 posts, so that once a user has successfully posted 5 posts (and until they're approved, it won't affect their post count), they can have different permissions attached.
3. Admin > Members > Permissions > Settings > Enable permissions for post count based groups (tick) > save

Here's where the paths diverge. Here's path A:
A4: On the same page as above (Admin > Members > Permissions > Settings) also enable Enable the option to deny permissions
A5: Go to Admin > Members > Permissions > Board Permissions and for each profile (that allows posting) set the permissions up as follows: Regular members should have "Post new topics, without requiring approval" and "Post replies to topics, without requiring approval" enabled, while the 0-post count group should have those permissions *denied* and "Post new topics, but hide until approved" and "Post replies to topics, but hide until approved" in their place. Once the user leaves the 0-post count group for the 5-post count group, the other permissions are no longer denied.[3]

Or, path B. It doesn't require deny permissions but it does things another way.
B4: Go to Admin > Members > Permissions > Board Permissions. For Regular Members, set all the posting permissions to disallow. Then in the 0-post count group, give them "Post new topics, but hide until approved" and "Post replies to topics, but hide until approved" and for every other post count group, give them "Post new topics, without requiring approval" and "Post replies to topics, without requiring approval".[4]

Either way, banal and frustrating (and in fact, you still have to do the same thing using the other interface but it's actually slightly *more* confusing, not less there).


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3.    But now we have an extra membergroup that does absolutely nothing other than allow another group's permissions to expire.
4.    This means you still have the extra group, but at least the extra group is now doing something. This is also very fractionally faster, but harder to maintain as you have to set the new permission up on any new post count group you create.

[kat]

I so like the word "Banal"... 

[Arantor]

There are plenty more colourful words in the original post of which this is only an extract (since notice only footnotes 3 and 4 were present)

Actually, I think I'll share a little more of my original writeup.

So, what's wrong with SMF's post moderation configuration? Firstly, Core Features. Regular readers will know that I loathe and detest that page. It's nice enough but it's illogical for a regular user to deal with. The number of people who, in the last couple of years, have asked how to turn it on should be proof enough of that.

Then, assuming you turn it on, post moderation shares one dubious award with the calendar, in being the only areas of SMF whose access permissions are configured in three different interfaces (that all do the same job). Yes, that's right, there are three different ways you can set permissions for post moderation - the simple and the classic permissions interfaces, and its own custom page.[1]


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1.    It actually gets its own page, template and images, while the calendar has to make do with using internal routines. But still, three places, and it's unique in how far the third page goes, elevating it in a class all of its own.

It is incredibly hard to set up. The only saving grace is that the UI as implemented is not a huge performance hit.

[kat]

Thankfully, it's not something that I've ever had to use.

Let's hope that I never have to.

[vbgamer45]

So, what's wrong with SMF's post moderation configuration? Firstly, Core Features. Regular readers will know that I loathe and detest that page. It's nice enough but it's illogical for a regular user to deal with. The number of people who, in the last couple of years, have asked how to turn it on should be proof enough of that.

I agree with that should be turned on by default. Most users ignore/skip over the core features area.

[Arantor]

That wasn't really my point. Turning it on by default adds an unnecessary performance penalty if post moderation is in force. Having a way to turn it on/off is important. But that should not be the Core Features page.

IMNSHO that page shouldn't even exist and the on/off delegated to the relevant pages in the rest of the admin panel.

[bobm01793]

You were right it is tricky!!

However the good news is I now have it working.  I have another forum to set up in a few months time so hopefully it will be a lot smoother next time.

Thanks for all the advice.  Much appreciated.

[kat]

WooHoo!

[Deprecated]

Nice write-up Cumber! I've had a bit of a spam problem and was thinking of setting it up so a new member's first two posts had to be approved by a moderator before they became visible. I had been considering doing something along the lines of your write-up but I wanted to make sure there wasn't some simple moderation setting for that.

Just curious, when the yet to be approved member makes a post I presume they see a messages that tells them their post will have to be approved before it can be read by others? And are they able to see their yet-to-be-approved posts before approval?

[Arantor]

Yeah, you didn't see the rest of the post where I was not so complimentary of SMF. To the point where for <that other forum I used to develop for> I totally rewrote how it worked.

When a post is not yet approved, the only people who can see it are the author and those who can approve posts. There are certain specific edge cases that are problematic (moderator replies to an unapproved topic, the reply itself is approved - to allow the topic starter to see it - and that will appear in recent posts because while the topic is not approved, the posts *are* and topic state is not checked in that page for performance)

[Deprecated]

Thanks. After messing with it a while I realized I got it totally hosed up. Getting tired. Need new glasses. Figured I was just digging my hole deeper.

There's just too many places to tinker with permissions and I haven't administrated a forum for the last few years so I'm just too rusty to do it right.