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Started by James093, June 07, 2014, 01:12:58 PM

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James093

Greetings,


I apologize if this is posted in the wrong section of the forum, I know how annoying it can be if people can't read, but I really couldn't see any other place to do so and assumed this was the right space.

I created a SMF for a small community and I'd really appreciate so help and/or clarification. I have come across a few small problems and headaches.

1. Moderators

As far as I know there is only one moderator group. You can edit the permissions for this 'Moderator' group, and if you add someone as a Moderator onto the board, they automatically have those permissions, but only for that board. Now, I want to have different permissions available for different moderators. I want person A to be able to delete posts, but not person B, but person B still has to be a moderator of a seperate, or of the same board, but only able to edit posts. Is this possible?  I have different people as Moderators for different boards, but I don't want them all to have the same permissions.

2. Moderators for Membergroups

I see that it's possible to put someone as a moderator for a specific Membergroup. What does this do exactly? Does this allow a person to assign a user to this membergroup, or does it only monitor the actions they take?

3. Performance

I've noticed since I created the forums that there is a 'lag' or 'delay' of about 2 to 3 minutes. If I post a topic it doesn't show up immediately. The same for settings, if I change a setting it doesn't show immediately, but after a few minutes it appears. What could this be? Last night I saw that the 'server time' was set to 'Europe - London', when the server is actually in the US, and changed this. For a moment i thought that solved the problem - but it hasn't. There is still a delay. What steps can I take to solve this? If a person posts it should show up immediately, not a few minutes later. I have to say that I have a Windows Server and not Linux, could this be the problem?

4. Membergroups

When I created the forums I started creating Membergroups. Almost ALL of the Membergroups I have are 'based on Regular Member'. Can this be a problem? Can I base a NEW Membergroup on 'Moderator' and have that person be a Moderator (move, edit etc.) the entire forum? As the only other group that gives such permissions is Administrator, and I don't want to assign anyone else to this group.

5.  Approving New Members

Right now I have it set so that new accounts have to be approved first. Right now only Administrators can do it. Is it possible to have someone who is not an Administrator also approve new accounts? If so, where and how?

6. Header Buttons

At the top of the forums there are buttons (example: Admin, Profile etc.). Is it possible to add my own that are linked to a certain part of the forum? I want to have a button there that links to one of the topics. Also, is it possible to add other buttons but on other places, such as links to Twitter or Youtube, or does that depend on the theme?

7. Removing Replies

I want some Moderators (depending on their permissions) to be able to remove Replies to a topic, but not the entire Topic. I understand that it's possible to 'Split Topic' and separate the replies from the original topic, but this is a very impractical way to do it. I want moderators or administrators to be able to choose on the reply they want to move or delete. Is this possible?


I would greatly appreciate it if someone can help me with these problems or refer me to a guide that explains the process.

Thank you

Arantor

1. That group is specifically if you make someone a 'board moderator'. You can create alternative moderator groups instead and assign people to those groups. Generally it is done with a simpler structure than the kind you're implying though.

2. It is about allowing those moderators to grant people access to that group. Generally, 'team leaders' occupy the group moderator position to add people to, or remove people from, that group.

3. That's called caching and is done to prevent your server being overloaded by requesting fresh data every time. As your site grows this will become more important.

4. All the groups based on 'regular member' mean they have the same basic permissions as that group. Sure you can create a new group. You can create groups not based on anything and assign whatever permissions you like to it.

5. That should be controlled by groups who have the 'moderate forum members' permission. Add people to a group with that permission.

6. Yes, but you'll need to do a direct edit of the raw PHP code to do it. More information: Adding tabs to SMF 2.0

7. Of course it is. Give them permission to delete replies rather than delete topics. It's all in the permissions area.

James093

Greetings,

Thank you for the reply. I started to work my way down the list, but this morning when I woke up, someone who I gave an Administrator mask, managed to wipe out my entire forum. I cannot log into the root Administrator account either - not even sure how it's possible for him to delete the main Administrator account.

I went to http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Administration_-_I_accidentally_lost_my_admin_account!_What_can_I_do but I don't really understand what to do. It speaks of running a query, but doesn't tell me where to run this query from, and the other option is to use a downloaded Mod, which I don't have.

If I can access the main Administrator account, or at least bring it back, I can maybe save the forums. Otherwise my only option would be to re-install SMF.

Kindred

You would run the query from within the SQL interface, usually phpmyadmin
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Illori

there is no way in smf to stop an admin for doing anything that includes deleting all users. smf does not prevent an admin from deleting or removing admin from another user or admin.

James093

I've tried every possible prefix for the database, nothing works. My host is godaddy and I've read that other people have had problems identifying their prefix as well.
Can anyone help me to try and figure out what the prefix for the database is, please?

Also, he deleted ALL user accounts, including my Administrator account. So what I need to do is CREATE a new Administrator account so that I can access the security logs etc.

Any help and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

James093

I have accessed the SQL database of the forums and I'm at the logs that shows all of the member accounts he deleted, as well as other actions he took. Is it possible to revert this by editing the log? It's possible to either Edit, Copy or Delete the action he did.

Lou69

If the database has been emptied of the user accounts, then no. The logs simply show the action taken by an admin type person.

You can ask GoDaddy to restore a previous database, that is one option.

If the site is very, very new as in a few days then instead of flogging this to death it would be simpler to reinstall SMF.

As to deleting an admin account, take a look in the admin profile and you will see the option to delete your own account.

James093

The forums didn't have that much information on it, so I decided to rather re-install SMF.
Changes made (such as posting and setting changes) still take a few minutes to show up. It's not immediate and rather annoying.
How do I improve caching when I have a Shared Windows Server plan with GoDaddy? I know people say to install APC to improve caching but APC won't install on a shared server?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to improve caching so that when someone posts a topic, it shows up immediately?

Thank you

Arantor

I still don't think you understand what caching means. It means you put something into storage and run from that - the 'delay' you see is how caching works. It means that instead of getting it live (at a non-trivial performance cost), you get a version that's at most a few minutes old but much quicker to retrieve.

The only way to 'improve' it from your line of thinking would be to make everything slower by turning it off so every single time it has to do so much more work to get 'live' data.

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