XF 1.2 Basic moderation abilities unavailable to moderators?

[Stuart Wright]

Just been asked this by the moderators ahead of migrating:

"How do I {look up a member's email}?"
"How do I {look up a members D.O.B}?"
"How do I {look up a member's registration IP}?"
"How do I {look up all of a member's posting IPs}?"
"How do I {cross check IPs across members}?"
"How do I {look up a member's reason for being banned}?"

and I just realised there is no modcp like in vbulletin where they can do this stuff.
It's essential functionality.
How do we do it?

 

[Stuart Wright]

@Mike if, when assigning a moderator, we could select multiple nodes from the list, that would certainly speed things up a lot at a stroke.
[posted moments after your reply]

 

[CTXMedia]

... the one place where you can set the default set of privileges a Moderator gets when they are allocated to a forum (or parent or category).

The place to do this is in the Node Tree (ACP > Applications > Node Tree) - click the Permissions column - then use the Set Permissions option (top right) to set permissions for each individual moderator (for that node).

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Harpers Tate]

@Clickfinity Sorry, not making myself clear. This isn't a per-Moderator thing. I don't want to have to set permission once per Moderator <> Forum instance. I want to set it once - period. But it's not to apply board-wide; only in those places where the Mod is allocated. Because we have 50+ Mods and 50+ forums and hundreds of combinations of Mod <> Forum.

 

[CTXMedia]

Ah, I see - I have misread what you're trying to do. No worries, permissions can be very complex (a nightmare sometimes) and when you're new to XF perms - which work differently to other boards - and it can be frustrating.

I can't say I've seen a board with as many mods as you guys so I'm sure that by the time you've finished you'll have some good suggestions/short-cuts.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Harpers Tate]

To give an indication of the size of the matter at AVForums, I believe this page is available for public view
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showgroups.php
Each and every link in the "Forums" column represents an instance of a group of Permissions that needs to be set individually in Xenforo.

 

[Martok]

To give an indication of the size of the matter at AVForums, I believe this page is available for public view
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showgroups.php
Each and every link in the "Forums" column represents an instance of a group of Permissions that needs to be set individually in Xenforo.

That's a lot of forums - over 100!

So how does setting permissions work on your current platform?

 

[Harpers Tate]

Much more easily in this respect. (It's an outdated version of vB).
If a user is a Moderator (and not a SuperModerator) then they are added to a Moderator UserGroup that has various extra privileges. (So far, so good).

However those extra privileges mostly aren't ever global. Those that are intrinsically about moderating in a forum (that's most of them) (such as, edit, delete others' posts) apply only within those forums the Mod is allocated to. The extra privileges their UserGroup gives them do NOT apply outwith their "own" forums; there they are largely just members.
After all, that's what a Moderator is, right?
(Although there are certain privileges that are intrinsically global - like being able to see IP addresses; ban users; they do apply throughout. )

If I need their extra privileges to be able to work over all the forums, I'd need to allocate them as (ordinary) Moderator to all of the forums - or make them a SuperMod.
After all, that's what a SuperMod is, right?

 

[Martok]

Much more easily in this respect. (It's an outdated version of vB).
If a user is a Moderator (and not a SuperModerator) then they are added to a Moderator UserGroup that has various extra privileges. (So far, so good).

However those extra privileges mostly aren't ever global. Those that are intrinsically about moderating in a forum (that's most of them) (such as, edit, delete others' posts) apply only within those forums the Mod is allocated to. The extra privileges their UserGroup gives them do NOT apply outwith their "own" forums; there they are largely just members.
After all, that's what a Moderator is, right?
(Although there are certain privileges that are intrinsically global - like being able to see IP addresses; ban users; they do apply throughout. )

If I need their extra privileges to be able to work over all the forums, I'd need to allocate them as (ordinary) Moderator to all of the forums - or make them a SuperMod.
After all, that's what a SuperMod is, right?

OK, I understand the bit about someone being added to a Moderator UserGroup. Is this just one single Moderator UserGroup on your forums? How then is the user added to a specific forum so that they have the moderator privileges in there and not anywhere else?

I'm just curious in case there is a workaround for Xenforo and if not then a bit more detail may help the team in understanding your needs and how they are currently met.

 

[Jeremy]

vBulletin allows you to assign moderator to forums which pull permissions from the group versus XenForo's assign to a forum with permissions.

 

[Harpers Tate]

Is this just one single Moderator UserGroup on your forums? How then is the user added to a specific forum so that they have the moderator privileges in there and not anywhere else.

It's one Moderator UserGroup. Yes.
The act of allocating a Mod to a forum is separate. When we do this, we don't at that point have to give them any permissions. Just assign them to a forum.

If this is the first time this member has been a Moderator, we first add them to the Moderators User Group. Doing that alone will give them some few extra permissions; those that are inherently global. But it will NOT give them any extra permissions in any forum (such as Edit).

(If the member is already a Mod we don't have to do that; they are already there).

The extra permissions the UserGroup has that are intrinsically forum specific (like edit, delete) are at this point latent.

We then add the user to a forum as its Moderator. Then and only then do they acquire the intrinsically forum-specific extra privileges from their UserGroup and they will ONLY take effect within the allocated forum. Elsewhere their permissions are mostly as per an ordinary member, despite their UserGroup. (As I say, some permissions are global by their very nature).

Why it's easier (in the case of these large numbers of Forum-Moderators) is that
a) we don't have to set these privileges each time we add a new Mod; we simply put them in the UserGroup (which sets up their latent privileges) and then give them some forums (which then activates those privileges in that forum).
b) if we want to change what Mods can do - either because we just want to, OR if we have a new add-on or somesuch - we do it ONCE in the UserGroup permissions and that then permeates out to all the Mod<>Forum instances.

 

[Martok]

It's one Moderator UserGroup. Yes.
The act of allocating a Mod to a forum is separate. When we do this, we don't at that point have to give them any permissions. Just assign them to a forum.

If this is the first time this member has been a Moderator, we first add them to the Moderators User Group. Doing that alone will give them some few extra permissions; those that are inherently global. But it will NOT give them any extra permissions in any forum (such as Edit).

(If the member is already a Mod we don't have to do that; they are already there).

The extra permissions the UserGroup has that are intrinsically forum specific (like edit, delete) are at this point latent.

We then add the user to a forum as its Moderator. Then and only then do they acquire the intrinsically forum-specific extra privileges from their UserGroup and they will ONLY take effect within the allocated forum. Elsewhere their permissions are mostly as per an ordinary member, despite their UserGroup. (As I say, some permissions are global by their very nature).

Why it's easier (in the case of these large numbers of Forum-Moderators) is that
a) we don't have to set these privileges each time we add a new Mod; we simply put them in the UserGroup (which sets up their latent privileges) and then give them some forums (which then activates those privileges in that forum).
b) if we want to change what Mods can do - either because we just want to, OR if we have a new add-on or somesuch - we do it ONCE in the UserGroup permissions and that then permeates out to all the Mod<>Forum instances.

Thanks for the explanation.

As you have said, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent here on Xenforo for large forums that use moderators in this way.

 

[Chris D]

I think I certainly appreciate the granularity of the current system. But that's easy for someone to say when they don't have 300 forums and 50 moderators to apply permissions to

With that in mind, I've given the obligatory "like" to the suggestion made by @Harpers Tate.

(That suggestion is here, by the way)

 

[CTXMedia]

To give an indication of the size of the matter at AVForums, I believe this page is available for public view
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showgroups.php
Each and every link in the "Forums" column represents an instance of a group of Permissions that needs to be set individually in Xenforo.

Wow ... just, wow!

 

[Harpers Tate]

Thanks for the "likes" .... and the "wow" !

 

[Stuart Wright]

This is one reason why I've confirmed with Jake (handling our import) that permissions are not overwritten during our final import and I can set them up now on an early import. I don't want people to be twiddling their thumbs waiting for the website to go live while we rush to set up hundreds of moderator <> forum combinations.