This will end up being a mod but I have Cybernetec's mod installed on my vB forum as it saves me creating test accounts to test things that affect my users - I can just log into their account to check the styles/permissions/etc.
Which administrative purposes? .. I could never think of any to be honest.
Floris, you don't imagine how many times I have to either open a incognito window or a new browser to log in as a test user on a specifig usergroup to check permisions or template changes when I do modifications on my site
I would implement this on a basis whereby you can log into their account and browse but you can't edit anything in terms of profiles etc.
A lot of you are thinking "if it's admin-only, they can just go into the admincp and edit it anyway", but this method prevents admins from messing around with user's accounts (as a joke or whatever). Users expect their accounts to have some kind of security and allowing admins to log in to their account violates that (especially if they can change things). I also think things like private conversations shouldn't be visible when an admin logs in to their account.
Database-wise, unless those private conversations are encrypted (which would most likely be easily reversible by the administrator in question), the administrator can simply access the raw records. So, if the administrator wants to see those private conversations, he/she will.
I know that they can be accessed by the database, but are you really going to look through the DB without a good reason?
I think it's logical that if PCs are so easily accessible just by logging into someone's account then you're more susceptible to reading them and violating the "private" part of the conversation.
Get what I'm saying?
Somebody without the morals or willpower to stop themselves from reading PMs, regardless of how easy it is, would probably end up reading them some other way anyways.
(I don't see how it could be used at all).
On one of my forums, most of my members aren't very tech-savvy, and sometimes it seems like using a forum is like rocket science to them. There are countless occasions in which I've been asked to change a setting for users, delete a thread subscription for them, check out why they can't post without getting a weird error, etc.
It's an invaluable tool that has made my life easier. Without it, I'd have to ask users for their passwords (or change it to a dummy password) and then advise them to change it back.
But as I said earlier, as great as this tool is, I believe it's best-suited as an add-on.
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