Moderator Permissions - Scalability

[Harpers Tate]

We have a large forum and a large number of Moderators (over 50). Moderators each have responsibility for a small number of forums only.

The current permissions setup appears not to scale to such a large board very well.

We (obviously) want to allow our Moderators to do the "extra" things they need in the forums to which they are allocated (like, say, editing and deleting others' posts), yet have the same permission as their underlying membership type elsewhere in the board - i.e with no or few extras.

There will be a default set of extra permissions for this. Every instance of Moderator <> Forum (Node) (or Parent) will, in all probability, carry the same set of permissions. That set of permissions may need to change from time to time - either for changed needs, or if, say, a new Add-On is installed.

With our large board, we therefore have a very large number (hundreds) of instances of Moderator <> Node (or Parent) Permissions. Each of which has to be set separately (acknowledging there is the "copy" tool, the use of which is limited to expanding ONE moderator's role).

What is missing here - the suggestion - is a single place where the standard set of (extra) permissions can be determined, such that, where a Moderator is assigned to a forum (or parent), they will acquire those permissions within that forum ONLY, without their needing to be individually set for every instance.

And that, if any change is made to this core Moderator <> Forum permission setting, it will apply across all instances of Moderator <> Forum.

(Example: Suppose that we initially disallow Moderators to Hard Delete posts in "their" forums. Suppose that we later decide they need this. Currently we'd need to make hundreds of amendments. We need one page where this can be changed once, permission given (or removed), to apply to all Moderators on their own patch. Further example: we install a new add-on. We need to issue permissions to all Moderators to use it, without having to set this hundreds of times.)

 

[feldon30]

I too was surprised that I had to explicitly dole out every permission to each moderator -- there wasn't a blanket list I could modify somewhere that would apply to all mods.

 

[Lawrence]

Good suggestion, and one I would love to see implemented for convenience sake.

 

[DJ XtAzY]

I guess they can implement something along the lines with the Thread Prefixes, but instead, you can quick-select moderators, and apply permissions from the source mod to the target mods.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

All of my desire goes into this.

We have hundreds of mods due to our unique setup.

 

[Harpers Tate]

@mistypants quite validly raises the parallel issue of de-moderating someone (whether due to their leaving, or due, as @Amaury says to their being promoted) as being similarly cumbersome.

New case in point (and an unashamed "bump" for this suggestion):

XF 1.4 has a new feature allowing Moderators to Thread Ban.
It makes sense (I hope) that this permission is required only in those nodes where a Moderator is a Moderator.

AVForums will require 211 separate permissions pages to be accessed to set this up. (211 instances of Moderator-Node permission).

 

[RobEnthused]

let me make sure I have this straight. I also have moderators of individual boards. I'd like them to be able to have moderator permissions in that board only. So I have to go to "moderators" in the adminCP and click the boards that they are assigned and assign those permissions individually? Because if I, as an example, set the moderator usergroup to edit posts then they will be able to do it globally?

If there wasn't the option for super moderators, I would understand why it is set this way. But there are super moderators. The super moderators should have the global moderation access that only needs to be granted by editing their super mod usergroup permissions and by making them a supermod. The moderator should only get moderation access by setting the moderator usergroup permissions and then assigning them the boards to moderate. Otherwise whats the real hierarchy between these two usergroups besides what settings you create? Obviously, this is all just opinion. Now, gotta go edit 80 moderator permissions

 

[Xon]

What I do is create a user-group per forum, assign the custom permissions to that user group on that ode. And then add moderators to that group as required.

After that, it is a matter of fiddling with group membership rather than individual permissions.

Yes, this means a lot of user groups. But the alternative is a crapload of per-user permission sets.

 

[RobEnthused]

thanks @Xon , that is less cumbersome than the alternative.

 

[Harpers Tate]

@refugeforums May I solicit a "like" from you on the first post, please? More "likes" raises the potential for this to be looked at for a system change. Ta.

 

[Evan Scamman]

I am very surprised to discover that xenForo does not distinguish between Global Moderators and specific Forum Moderators.

To me this makes the Permissions set for Forum Moderators virtually worthless.
Am I correct in understanding this? If so, it seems like a gaping hole in an otherwise awesome permissions scheme.

 

[Harpers Tate]

@Evan Scamman
It's not worthless exactly - you CAN set individual Mod-Forum permissions and you CAN edit them; but for a large board with many separate Moderator <> Forum settings, you have to set up and/or edit each individual Mod <> Forum individually. You can't, anywhere, in ONE GO say, for all of your Moderators - "I want my moderators to have {...x...} permission but only in "their" sections". You have to do it as many times as you have Moderator <> Forum allocations.

If you wish to do so, please add your weight to this change request by "liking" the first post.

 

[Kirby]

Role-based (moderator) permissions really could be useful in some cases.