XF 1.5 Guest posts

[Mr Lucky]

I want allow guests to post to a forum, that only allows people (registered and guests) to view their own threads.

Mods have permissions to view and reply in all threads. The point of this forum is so people can contact all mods as opposed to a PC to one mod or contact form to one admin.

The forum is working fine for members who post. As designed they can only see their own thread and can have a discussion with all mods.

However I have set up permissions so guests can also post. A couple of problems

• When I test this, a guest can post, but they cannot see the thread.
• When the guest posts, they are prompted to fill in "Forum Name" but they obviously do not have a forum name.
• They get a message that the post is awaiting moderation, however it is not in the moderation queue, and is already approved.

Can anyone please help.

(NB: I just realised that "guest" if they can view their own thread might see all guest threads. However if this happens it isn't a disaster)


Here are my Unregistered permissions.

 

[Mike]

When I test this, a guest can post, but they cannot see the thread.

Because of what you've noted, we don't allow guests to see any thread in this case. There's no way of identifying a guest individually. We don't allow access to anything as that's "safer" than allowing access to more things than people might expect.

When the guest posts, they are prompted to fill in "Forum Name" but they obviously do not have a forum name.

They have to choose a username of some description (that isn't used by a registered user).

They get a message that the post is awaiting moderation, however it is not in the moderation queue, and is already approved.

It's mostly an assumption about the behavior which happens to be wrong here, but it won't take you to your thread if it detects that you can't view it, instead taking you to the forum list and showing you a message. The assumption is that this is awaiting approval.

I'm not totally sure I understand the use case of this system, but I think if you're wanting to do this, you'd be better off with 2 nodes: ones where guests can post in all threads (and it's not visible to most members) and one where members can only view their own threads (and guests can't see the node since they won't see anything anyway).

 

[Mr Lucky]

I'm not totally sure I understand the use case of this system,

It is because the contact form is an email, so not so good when you want all mods in on the discussion. A forum thread is much tidier for discussons between multiple people. Alternatively (for members) you could have PCs to all mods, however this is not so good for archiving as a dedicate forum. We also use this forum for reports so mods can discuss issues with the reporter. It actually works very well.

I think if you're wanting to do this, you'd be better off with 2 nodes: ones where guests can post in all threads (and it's not visible to most members) and one where members can only view their own threads (and guests can't see the node since they won't see anything anyway).

Yes, this did occur to me.

I think the ideal solution for guests though would maybe be a support type chatbox where they can talk to mods, but keep the discussion private.

 

[THM]

Because of what you've noted, we don't allow guests to see any thread in this case. There's no way of identifying a guest individually. We don't allow access to anything as that's "safer" than allowing access to more things than people might expect.


They have to choose a username of some description (that isn't used by a registered user).


It's mostly an assumption about the behavior which happens to be wrong here, but it won't take you to your thread if it detects that you can't view it, instead taking you to the forum list and showing you a message. The assumption is that this is awaiting approval.

I'm not totally sure I understand the use case of this system, but I think if you're wanting to do this, you'd be better off with 2 nodes: ones where guests can post in all threads (and it's not visible to most members) and one where members can only view their own threads (and guests can't see the node since they won't see anything anyway).

In the guest node, you still run into the issue that the message is marked moderated but, in our case, there is no notice that it's moderated, and it doesn't appear anywhere.

A viable support system for guests who are having trouble registering or logging on is needed. Chat systems require a moderator to be online.