XF 1.4 More Moderator & Administrator Tools

XenForo 1.4 continues to add tools and enhancements to help your moderators and administrators to manage your users and their content.

Today, we're looking at inline moderation enhancements, 'author alerts', the 'Like' removal tool and the reply ban system.

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Maybe already mentioned, but id like to copy usergroep permissions when adding a new group with minor changes.
You're probably not using permissions correctly then. They are supposed to be cumulative across multiple user groups. Everyone has Registered as their Primary group with base permissions and users added to multiple secondary user groups to give additional permissions. See this guide for details.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/implementing-permissions-across-multiple-user-groups.358/
 
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Sorry if some of these things are already functioning and it's just my inability to discover how to use them, but from my own use it would be nice to be able to have:

1. More tools made available for Moderators without having to make them 'Administrators', such as easy one click banning for trolls as well as spammers, ip address searching, discouraging and user group moving. Currently I have to make them Admins with custom permissions to be able to have access to these things.

--- In short, it would be nice to have the full Edit User Profile options available to Moderators if desired.

2. Moderators and Admins be able to view full registration data without having to leave the front-end profile (such as email address, birthday, custom fields, ip address). I really loved this about VB, it frustrates me having to go to a different control panel and then bounce around multiple tabs to see basic user information -- it's very helpful to know whether a user is a spammer / troll. It's even more difficult for my less computer-savvy Moderators.

3. Make IP address viewing, discouraging and one-click banning options (in addition to spam cleaner) accessible from the front-end profile for moderators.
 
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Maybe already mentioned, but id like to copy usergroup permissions when adding a new group with minor changes.

Yeah this has always frustrated me. The thing is, even with Global Permissions there are often times when groups have a very similar structure but are used for very different purposes.

Many times I have had to open a usergroup permissions page, leave it open and copy the settings over one by one to the new group. Fun :)
 
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Sorry if some of these things are already functioning and it's just my inability to discover how to use them, but from my own use it would be nice to be able to have:

1. More tools made available for Moderators without having to make them 'Administrators', such as easy one click banning for trolls as well as spammers, ip address searching, discouraging and user group moving. Currently I have to make them Admins with custom permissions to be able to have access to these things.

--- In short, it would be nice to have the full Edit User Profile options available to Moderators if desired.

2. Moderators and Admins be able to view full registration data without having to leave the front-end profile (such as email address, birthday, custom fields, ip address). I really loved this about VB, it frustrates me having to go to a different control panel and then bounce around multiple tabs to see basic user information -- it's very helpful to know whether a user is a spammer / troll. It's even more difficult for my less computer-savvy Moderators.

3. Make IP address viewing, discouraging and one-click banning options (in addition to spam cleaner) accessible from the front-end profile for moderators.

@Stormlilly - you be better off posting these in the suggestions forum, here: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-suggestions.18/

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Sorry if some of these things are already functioning and it's just my inability to discover how to use them, but from my own use it would be nice to be able to have:

1. More tools made available for Moderators without having to make them 'Administrators', such as easy one click banning for trolls as well as spammers, ip address searching, discouraging and user group moving. Currently I have to make them Admins with custom permissions to be able to have access to these things.

--- In short, it would be nice to have the full Edit User Profile options available to Moderators if desired.

2. Moderators and Admins be able to view full registration data without having to leave the front-end profile (such as email address, birthday, custom fields, ip address). I really loved this about VB, it frustrates me having to go to a different control panel and then bounce around multiple tabs to see basic user information -- it's very helpful to know whether a user is a spammer / troll. It's even more difficult for my less computer-savvy Moderators.

3. Make IP address viewing, discouraging and one-click banning options (in addition to spam cleaner) accessible from the front-end profile for moderators.

All of this should be the norm, or at least a selectable option.

There seems to be an element floating around here of "we will declare what an admin and a moderator is and what they can do", rather than observing and following commonly accepted practice and understanding. I guarantee there has been at least a few people who decided just to stick with the free MyBB, with its commonsense and commonly practiced application of "moderator" and "administrator" simply because of this.

Permanent one-click bans, for trolls & spammers etc, is and always will be a moderator role, not an administrator role, by consensus of the whole forum-space, regardless of what anyone who works for XenForo declares.

It's more profitable to submit to what the customer wants and will pay for, rather than to attempt to unilaterally declare what the customer wants to him, to which he will simply respond by going elsewhere.

XenForo is doing pretty much everything right, out-of-the-box, except for this.
 
moderator role / administrator role,
Even some easily done "surveys" during install as to how do you want your website to run could save alot of grief. Based on the simple questions, permissions could be set accordingly.

The surveys could easily be done later.

And the whole .... everyone's primary usergroup should be "Registered" weirdness was just ... well ... awkward.

Why have a primary group .... that is the same for everybody ? ? ?
 
And the whole .... everyone's primary usergroup should be "Registered" weirdness was just ... well ... awkward.

Yeah it's a bit odd, I guess it could work for common use cases (if they made a big clear point a the top of the page they use a cumulative system), but it's not as flexible.

Simple example: say I want to quasi-ban members, but I want a "banned sin-bin" forum, which is the only one they can talk in. So quasi-banned members can only access that forum. Currently, the system allows a warning level to cause addition of user groups (and thus rights). Logically then, since access rights are additive, I cannot make that warning level cause them to be transferred solely to the "sin-bin" group, which has more limited rights.

The standard "one main user-group with varied rights for each usergroup" style, with an admin interface to "copy this usergroup" to create new types of users, is much better and more intuitive. MyBB also uses a hybrid which allows the best of both worlds.

It's true that the front-end experience is much more important, and XenForo is doing a great job at that. And the back-end systems (templating, hooks, the extend-class based add-on system) is really good too. But some of this stuff in the "mid end" is really getting blown out of the water by the free MyBB's intuitive admin/mod system. I'd happily pay for an add-on with the name "Make admin/mod interface exactly the same as in MyBB".
 
I cannot make that warning level cause them to be transferred solely to the "sin-bin" group, which has more limited rights.
I am encountering similar issues as I too have a bad members group with severe restrictions. The normal promotions system makes automatic demotion to such a sin-bin group impossible because it would bounce back and forth eternally.
You can also not automatically ban based upon criteria. We had these functions in vb3 core.
Addons to resolve these problems are currently being built.

The moderator / admin setup can surely be improved upon. My biggest gripe is that to moderate users, moderators need to be admins with permission to change usergroups and promote demote moderators & admins...

I do find it problematic that XF needs such a massive number of addons for basic stuff. Im hoping for a better approach in XF2.1
 
I cannot make that warning level cause them to be transferred solely to the "sin-bin" group, which has more limited rights.

I am encountering similar issues as I too have a bad members group with severe restrictions. The normal promotions system makes automatic demotion to such a sin-bin group impossible because it would bounce back and forth eternally.
This is actually very easy to do and something I set up on my site. It's not about removing users to give them less rights, it's about adding users to another user groups that restricts their rights.

How do you do this you may ask? Well, this is the one instance where you actually use the Never permission setting.

So on my site, I have a "Naughty Step" group. In this group, I have all the permissions that I would want to restrict from a member set to Never (e.g. editing posts, changing avatar, posting without moderation etc).

In the ACP I have a Warning action set up to a certain warning points threshold. On meeting this threshold, the member would be added to the "Naughty Step" group. So if a member receives a certain number of warning points (via the various warning types I have set up) that meets this threshold then they are automatically added to the "Naughty Step" group. The Never permissions set in this group trump all other permissions set in the other user groups they are in, hence reducing/limiting what they can do.

Permanent one-click bans, for trolls & spammers etc, is and always will be a moderator role, not an administrator role, by consensus of the whole forum-space, regardless of what anyone who works for XenForo declares.
As for moderators being able to ban (either temporarily or permanently) this can be achieved through warnings and warning actions. I described how to do this for a temporary ban (and from this you can work out how to do it for a permanent ban) in this post:

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/addon-to-ban-users.111292/#post-1029101
 
Yes but there's a difference between "can be" and "should be / is universally done by". Or "obviously intuitively done best by...".

For instance, I can get to work by riding a horse. Legally it's permissible, I could buy the horse and the hay etc. But I should really get to work on a bus or by driving my car. One is done by everyone. Another is done by a small group of "we know best"s who don't.

It should simply be done how it's always done, and the majority (or in this case the consensus) shouldn't have to bend to fit the tiny minority.

And any profitable business should aim at fulfilling the greatest need and greatest universal desire at the highest price possible (which XenForo is doing about 80% the way).

Edit: if I can make a poll on here, I'll just put it to a vote and we'll get some genuine community feedback.
Seems I can:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/should-permanent-banning-be-a-moderator-role.132051/ ,
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...n-usergroups-or-absolute-on-usergroup.132052/
 
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This is actually very easy to do and something I set up on my site. It's not about removing users to give them less rights, it's about adding users to another user groups that restricts their rights.
That sort of works. But not really. It leads to a mess which I cant oversee with every member being in up to a dozen usergroups and me losing all overview of how my permissions are built up. Right now ever user has one major usergroup with all main permissions in it. This is not how XF is supposed to work, but this is the only way I can remember the permissions for all my usergroups in hundreds of nodes.

Well, this is the one instance where you actually use the Never permission setting.
But this then needs to be overridden again by other usergroups... Which is not possible.
 
That sort of works. But not really. It leads to a mess which I cant oversee with every member being in up to a dozen usergroups and me losing all overview of how my permissions are built up. Right now ever user has one major usergroup with all main permissions in it. This is not how XF is supposed to work, but this is the only way I can remember the permissions for all my usergroups in hundreds of nodes.
This is exactly how XenForo is supposed to work, I'm sure that @Brogan has pointed you to his guide which explains exactly how using multiple user groups for users works:

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/implementing-permissions-across-multiple-user-groups.358/

Also the guide on permissions for nodes:

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/understanding-permissions.360/

The one major user group for each user is a common way of thinking for people who have come from other forum software (I believe you've come from vB and I came from phpBB). It seems a strange concept being told that XenForo permissions are designed to be cumulative and members are supposed to be in multiple user groups but once you get around it, it does work. I have several user groups that members are in. Registered, with everyone in, has the base permissions. Then each of the other user groups has only the extra permissions required by that group. Users that require most of the permissions would be in most of those groups. It did help me to use a spreadsheet to have an overview of how all of the permissions for the user groups worked (and this is an area that XenForo could improve on, I believe there's a suggestion to have this sort of thing displayed in the ACP). Once I had the lightbulb moment about XenForo permissions, I saw the beauty of how it works and can't ever imagine going back to the old way of doing permissions like I had on phpBB.

BTW I'd be more than happy to discuss your permission set-up either privately or in another thread. It may be useful to get input from me or others on your setup and how you want things to work, as you may then get some ideas and suggestions that hopefully show how it can be done without too many user groups to make it unwieldy.

But this then needs to be overridden again by other usergroups... Which is not possible.
Never doesn't ever need to be overridden. If you want to deny permissions to members, you use Not Set (No) in user group permissions or Revoke in Node permissions. Never is only ever used in rare cases such as the "Naughty Step" group, which members would be removed from if you ever want them to have those permissions again. Also you can have several "Naughty Step" user groups if you want several levels of restrictions and for the worst offenders they would be in all 3 (again the groups would be designed to be cumulative with no overlap of permissions).

any chance to add option to moderators can only ban people for 24 hours to 7 days, and permanent ban is only admin option!
See my previous post where I linked to an example on how to achieve this.
 
If you have particular questions or feedback about permissions or features, please post a thread in the appropriate forum. This isn't really the ideal location for this discussion (it's not actually related to this thread).
 
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