XF 2.1 Unregistered / Unconfirmed, what is the latter for?

[beerForo]

I notice when a user is awaiting email confirmation their User State reflects this, but they are not in the Unregistered / Unconfirmed group. Is this a legacy group name that needs changing? We are setting those permissions thinking they apply to Unconfirmed members but I do not think they apply, unless I am missing something.

I did a search for all members in this group primary or secondary with 0 results, so thinking this only applies to Unregistered (guests)?

 

[Paul B]

Unconfirmed members are in the Registered group by virtue of the fact that they have actually registered.

Their permissions come from the Unregistered / unconfirmed user group until they confirm their account.

 

[beerForo]

How do those permissions apply to them if you look at their profile and they are not in that group? I thought to apply group permissions they had to be in the group?

 

[Paul B]

It's done via code.

 

[beerForo]

Okay so this would explain why the "permissions" but not the group title.

 

[beerForo]

It's a bit confusing since they are never in that group, perhaps calling it Guest or Unregistered (only) would work better, since that message tells us those permissions will apply to unconfirmed status, but they are not actually in that group.

 

[DigNap15]

Yes its very confusing.
Especially as Deleted members are also in this group!
Deleted members were Registered and were Confirmed. Its just that later on, they were Deleted.
Xenforo is great software
But they need to tidy up their terminology
Eg one minute members are members, next minute they are Users.

 

[Lukas W.]

Yes its very confusing.
Especially as Deleted members are also in this group!
Deleted members were Registered and were Confirmed. Its just that later on, they were Deleted.

I'd say it's clear that anything that isn't specifically confirmed, is unconfirmed. A deleted member doesn't have the confirmation (aka. permission) by you to interact with your site anymore, just like a user who hasn't confirmed his email address yet, who hasn't been approved by moderation or who simply hasn't signed up yet.

Xenforo is great software
But they need to tidy up their terminology
Eg one minute members are members, next minute they are Users.

There's a very clear distinction between members and users. A user is everyone that uses your site, guest or registered, a member is a part of your site, e.g. a registered user.

 

[Monkeytime]

I was linked to this post from another post.

XF 2.1 - Why is an unconfirmed user in the registered group?

This is a test user I made. 2.1. The user registered, but didn't confirm their email yet in the attached pic. The user state is 'awaiting email confirmation', which is fine. But I would also think they would be in the 'unregistered/unconfirmed' user group. I discovered this when trying to send...

xenforo.com

It's done via code.

Ok, this is a very disappointing revelation. And it took coming to another post where somebody else rooted this out.

Come on XF. Update the UX and terminology so you can accomplish your goals with resorting to using code. You want to make it clean, no? How can we practice safe sys administration if your UX doesn't make sense on the surface. Please make it so you don't have to use code to get around jankiness.

 

[Chris D]

Update the UX and terminology in what way? What is unclear or disappointing about this? What do you mean by "accomplish goals without resorting to using code"? How would that work, exactly? How is the current approach not clean? What about the "UX doesn't make sense"? What "jankiness" are you referring to, exactly?

 

[Chris D]

It's a bit confusing since they are never in that group, perhaps calling it Guest or Unregistered (only) would work better, since that message tells us those permissions will apply to unconfirmed status, but they are not actually in that group.

How would calling it "Guest or Unregistered" make any more sense than what it is already called? The permission set doesn't just apply to guests and unregistered users. It applies to unconfirmed or otherwise invalid users therefore we indicate that in its naming.

 

[Mendalla]

"Unregistered/Not validated"? I've never found it to be a problem myself, though. The note Brogan highlighted makes it perfectly clear to my eye.

 

[Monkeytime]

Update the UX and terminology in what way?

In a way that two people don't open up the same question pointing out the same confusion.

 

[Monkeytime]

Update the UX and terminology in what way?

Here's a more serious answer. All the black words are meant to be visible. Red words are my notes. Notice the clever execution of Auto Guest compared to current execution.

The interface itself explains it. Practically don't even need to read the manual, and it'd clear every question I had. And best, it doesn't obfuscate away internal coding because it's even called out where that exists (special users). Probably the biggest change is I don't see a need for a "valid" user state selection. The entire left side could be named "Valid state group permissions selection box".

 

[Paul B]

A lot of that is just incorrect.

Super moderator status is unrelated to administrator status.
One is a front end status, the other is back end. A member can be one, or the other, or both.

Accounts must be explicitly promoted to moderator and administrator - adding them to user groups doesn't make them so.

You may want to read up on the manual for user groups and permissions to get a better understanding.

User groups | Manual | XenForo

End-user documentation for XenForo

xenforo.com

 

[beerForo]

How would calling it "Guest or Unregistered" make any more sense than what it is already called? The permission set doesn't just apply to guests and unregistered users. It applies to unconfirmed or otherwise invalid users therefore we indicate that in its naming.

I don't have brainpower to go back to this lol. To avoid any confusion with groups/permissions maybe just append the note under the user state:
"When in a user state other than 'Valid', users will receive permissions from the Unregistered / Unconfirmed group however they will not appear as a member of this group.
Or whatever. Maybe more eloquently.

 

[DigNap15]

Also XF should look at the way they make a Deleted member show with a Title of Guest.
They are not a Guest.
They are an ex-memebr.
I managed to find a way to do this, but XF should make it part of the core set up

 

[Monkeytime]

Accounts must be explicitly promoted to moderator and administrator - adding them to user groups doesn't make them so.

And why can't it be made to do so?

Without changing anything on the back end, why can't it be implemented like my UI example so that checking that box also launches a script to promote the user, and unchecking the box launches a script to reverse that. How many people for the first time think checking that box makes them an admin? Probably 99.9%.

One upside to this, and to that screenshot, you'd never have to explain any of this ever again.

I'm not trying to make trouble, this just started as me asking questions and someone bringing me to their thread because they had the exact same question. There is confusion here. If you did all the dirty work in the background to make that screenshot UI example work, that would be sweet victory for your customers.

 

[beerForo]

That's a suggestion. You need to make one if you feel that strongly.

 

[Paul B]

It won't ever be implemented.

There are valid reasons for adding accounts to the Moderating user group without actually making them moderators.

Roles and permissions are distinct.