Give more options for staff to be invisable

[mrGTB]

I know there are hacks and so forth you can use to remove Admin showing as being online. But it would be better if there was some default options to completely hide either just Admin or covering all staff. Reason being, when your running a new forum it's not an ideal situation to be showing yourself as being the only person sitting there online for most of the time for anyone to see.

Not only that, when dealing with trolls or members joining intent on causing trouble. The one thing they want to be able to see is if the staff are there online. Being cloaked from these type of members joining gives staff a distinct advantage in dealing with them (they don't know if your there or not) when logging in. This means you can monitor them in secret hidden away from view.

Just an idea to think about, not sure what others view on this one is?

 

[Deebs]

There is an option already to do this.

Show online status.

 

[mrGTB]

Where are you seeing this option?

 

[Fuhrmann]

Where are you seeing this option?

I think that's in here:

 

[Deebs]

It makes you invisible from normal members but not other staff.

 

[mrGTB]

I see it now, just took the tick out that box. But doing so doesn't really cover everything for staff. If you look at the blocks in the sidebar as a guest it does removed the "staff online" one, but in the members online block below it still shows you (not by name), but as "1 member listed online". I guess that's OK if you have a large forum with lots of members online all the time and some are using invisible mode. You couldn't distinguish between staff or member in that situation.

But you would have to be a very busy forum though. My sugestion would be to leave that as normal for members acting the same way, but when staff remove the Show Online Tick, also don't list them as hidden regular members in that other block. Make them totally invisible.

 

[Paul B]

but not other staff.

Only if the "bypass user privacy" permission is set.

 

[Marcus]

I have disabled staff view with this in extra.css:

.staffOnline {display:none}

 

[mrGTB]

I have disabled staff view with this in extra.css:

.staffOnline {display:none}

Hmm, but isn't that just a CSS class to change "name colour" to make you appear as not being listed online in the Staff Block (display: none). But you'd still show-up as 1 member online giving you away big time in the "members online block".

 

[Paul B]

You could always try not logging in...

Other that that, you will need an add-on to be able to go invisible without appearing in the member online count.

 

[Marcus]

Hmm, but isn't that just a CSS class to change "name colour" to make you appear as not being listed online in the Staff Block (display: none). But you'd still show-up as 1 member online giving you away big time in the "members online block".

With my little tweak you can also see staff online in HTML code.

If you want to exclude the staff at all, you really have to modify the code.