Tell users why they do not have permission to access a page.

Alpha1

Well-known member
A simple no permissions page doesnt give users a clue about whats going on and will likely lead the user to send redundant questions to the admin.

There are a few reasons why a thread is not accessible:
- it has been deleted.
- it has been moved to or is located in a forum that the usergroup, the user is in, can not access.
- the user needs to validate their email account.

Similarly, if a user gets a no permission screen, when trying to access functionality that has been turned off for the usergroup, then its very useful for the user to understand that. Else they will possibly think this is an error and that the forum software is buggy.

If the user is informed what is going on then they will not need to ask.
 
Upvote 135
I believe if you encounter an error, there should be some description of why the error occurred and some valid options (return to board index, forward error to administration, visit FAQ/Help. Furthermore, I propose the following be added to every error message.

Accessing XenForo system. Handshake, handshake.
 
This is EPIC and I can totally see this being an unsung hero in the world of saving time to solve simple essentially non problematic issues that are usually based on the user not understanding permissions and things of the sort as gordy said. You have my total support on this.
 
A simple no permissions page doesnt give users a clue about whats going on and will likely lead the user to send redundant questions to the admin.

There are a few reasons why a thread is not accessible:
- it has been deleted.
- it has been moved to or is located in a forum that the usergroup, the user is in, can not access.
- the user needs to validate their email account.

Similarly, if a user gets a no permission screen, when trying to access functionality that has been turned off for the usergroup, then its very useful for the user to understand that. Else they will possibly think this is an error and that the forum software is buggy.

If the user is informed what is going on then they will not need to ask.

I wholeheartedly agree. Just for histories sake take a look at this 8 (yes, eight! ;)) year old request for vBulletin and interesting discussion about it:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?53181-Specific-error-messages
 
I had this on my suggestion list, and found that this is now suggested.

+1 from me.

Users thought they were banned at vb boards, while all that was happening was their usergroup not having access to the archive.

Having defined reasons (or fall back to what it is now (a global reason)) would really help narrow things down and make a board more user friendly.
 
Very good suggestion! I don't like the notice system of ipb with the "code error", you can't access to this page, you don't have the right ecc...

i'd like to see a flexible suggestion/notice system for guest and users
 
Superb idea! I think IPB has something similar to this, along with error codes. Straight-forward reasons would exemplify the Xenforo experience even further.
 
I'm all for admin-defined reasons, but I actually like IPB's error codes, since the users can give you, the admin, a better view of what happened when they send you the error message, while the they just get the gist of the message, without having to read technical information.

Maybe put the error at the end of the message or something, but I definitely like codes. Makes me feel all geeky inside. :D
 
I'm all for admin-defined reasons, but I actually like IPB's error codes, since the users can give you, the admin, a better view of what happened when they send you the error message, while the they just get the gist of the message, without having to read technical information.

Maybe put the error at the end of the message or something, but I definitely like codes. Makes me feel all geeky inside. :D
A combination of the two would be perfect.
 
It can be tricky to necessarily know what error message to give in particular situations, particularly when someone is logged out and you don't know what will happen when they log in. In this situation, I think be basically tell them to log in.

Our permission system has a framework for exposing a more specific error message, so something like this could be doable, depending on the situation. For example, we wouldn't be able to tell if at one time a user could view a thread but it was moved somewhere that they couldn't see, but we could say that it was (soft) deleted.
 
It would be nice to keep things as friendly as possible, especially for people new to forums. I find the ipb #s extremely unfriendly for some reason.

Perhaps a friendly "Terribly sorry you cannot see this, there could be a few reasons for this 123421" (error code in smallest font which could be copied/pasted into PC)
 
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