As designed Search forums will always display thread/message counts despite privacy

Alternadiv

Well-known member
Affected version
2.2
Private search forums still show thread/message stats instead of hiding them the way other private nodes will.

The screenshot was taken while logged out. The unregistered group has "view" and "view node" set to yes, with all other permissions set to "never". The nodes themselves don't have any permissions set.
 

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    Screen Shot 2022-01-16 at 9.28.11 PM.webp
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I think this might be another similar bug?

I have a search forum, "Popular Threads".

All of my forums are included in the search. One of those forums is "Off-topic" and this forum has permissions set to not allow guests to view thread content (but they can view the forum and view the thread titles).

Because of that permission, the search forum "Popular Threads" will show as private on the forum list. But the search forum is not private and if you click into it as a guest, you will see all of the results as you should be able to.
 

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While you can set forum permissions on a search forum to allow them to cascade down to any child forums (in much the same way as you can with a category, link forum, or page), these permissions don't apply to search forums themselves since they display threads from other forums rather than containing threads in their own right.

Regular forums are considered private when users do not have permission to view others threads, but whether or not a thread is visible in a search forum is contingent on the permissions of the forum that the thread was posted in. As such, the only permission directly applicable to a search forum is whether or not the node is visible.

Because of that permission, the search forum "Popular Threads" will show as private on the forum list. But the search forum is not private and if you click into it as a guest, you will see all of the results as you should be able to.
The latest thread of a search forum is listed as private when a user does not have permission to view it, even if the user might be able to view an older thread within the search forum. Unfortunately it is not viable to display the latest visible thread instead for performance reasons.
 
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