XenForo 1.3 also contains a number of changes and improvements to help moderators. Let's look at some of them...
Reporting a User
While this isn't related to an action a moderator would take themselves, users can now be reported directly from their profile. This can be used for users that haven't posted any content, but may have an inappropriate avatar, signature, or other value.
Thread Moderator Action History
Moderators can now view all moderator-level actions taken in a thread from a new option in the Thread Tools menu:
This will display an overlay like this:
Moving Posts to an Existing Thread
When moving posts via inline moderation, they can now be moved to an existing thread by simply providing the URL to that thread:
This URL is processed with the same system that processes incoming requests, so it correctly handles URL modifications using route filters.
Copying Posts
Individual posts can now be duplicated via inline moderation:
As you can see, the options are similar to moving posts, so you can create a new thread or copy them to an existing one.
Limited User Editing
You can now give moderators access to edit a limited amount of user information. This includes:
Each custom field now has an option to control whether moderators can edit the field value.
Shared IP Checking
To detect if a user had registered more than one account, we sometimes found that moderators were simply running the spam cleaner with only the "check IPs" option selected. This was not ideal and often not available as an option, so we've now added an option to check for shared IPs via a user's profile page:
This brings up an overlay that's very similar to the version shown in the spam cleaner:
Additional Warning Action Options
The approach for defining a warning action has been modified:
Most significantly, all warning actions can now be specified to only run for a specific time period. Previously, only bans could be run for a length of time; groups or discouragement were applied while above the points threshold.
While this might not seem like a big change, the most significant power lies in adding a user to a specific group. Using the XenForo permission system, you can remove specific permissions from users that have crossed your warning thresholds. This is the use case that Never was designed for.
You can now create a warning action hierarchy such as:
From a development perspective, the system for making temporary user changes has been designed to be very generic and usable in other ways. I'm sure there will be some very cool uses of this system once 1.3 is out.
Until next time...
Reporting a User
While this isn't related to an action a moderator would take themselves, users can now be reported directly from their profile. This can be used for users that haven't posted any content, but may have an inappropriate avatar, signature, or other value.
Thread Moderator Action History
Moderators can now view all moderator-level actions taken in a thread from a new option in the Thread Tools menu:
This will display an overlay like this:
Moving Posts to an Existing Thread
When moving posts via inline moderation, they can now be moved to an existing thread by simply providing the URL to that thread:
This URL is processed with the same system that processes incoming requests, so it correctly handles URL modifications using route filters.
Copying Posts
Individual posts can now be duplicated via inline moderation:
As you can see, the options are similar to moving posts, so you can create a new thread or copy them to an existing one.
Limited User Editing
You can now give moderators access to edit a limited amount of user information. This includes:
- Custom titles
- Location
- Occupation
- Home page
- About
- Signature
- Avatar
- And selected custom fields
Each custom field now has an option to control whether moderators can edit the field value.
Shared IP Checking
To detect if a user had registered more than one account, we sometimes found that moderators were simply running the spam cleaner with only the "check IPs" option selected. This was not ideal and often not available as an option, so we've now added an option to check for shared IPs via a user's profile page:
This brings up an overlay that's very similar to the version shown in the spam cleaner:
Additional Warning Action Options
The approach for defining a warning action has been modified:
Most significantly, all warning actions can now be specified to only run for a specific time period. Previously, only bans could be run for a length of time; groups or discouragement were applied while above the points threshold.
While this might not seem like a big change, the most significant power lies in adding a user to a specific group. Using the XenForo permission system, you can remove specific permissions from users that have crossed your warning thresholds. This is the use case that Never was designed for.
You can now create a warning action hierarchy such as:
- Manually approve posts for 1 day
- Manually approve posts for 3 days
- Read only for 3 days
- Read only for 1 week
- Ban for 1 week
- Ban permanently
From a development perspective, the system for making temporary user changes has been designed to be very generic and usable in other ways. I'm sure there will be some very cool uses of this system once 1.3 is out.
Until next time...
