First off, I need to reiterate my need for forum level moderators, those individuals I can assign to moderated and unmoderated topics that have the ability to move, rename, edit, delete topics so that I can delegate some authority to my fairly high traffic board.

Next... I have paid subscribers, these subscribers are in thier own member group and have access to additional forums, I would like to setup my forums to moderate new topics only... but this only effects the non subscribed users, this would spur more paid members because it would remove this delay in thier post and ultimately improve the level of content since your instigators and boneheads wouldnt want to pay to make stupid posts.

One last thing... and this is gingerbread... if your in a group (my paid subscribers for instance) Im wondering if there is a good way to assign an icon to denote folders with availability beyond the "registered users". This way if you look at all the forums.. you'd see which ones are "additional" that you have access to vs the ones the general public sees. Obviously if you dont have access you wouldnt see anything so the icon just helps those higher up the food chain to differentiate forums... thus keeping someone from wondering why a new topic or post isnt getting the attention they figured it might.

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your post and feature suggestions.

Dito - i have in mind to provide the ability to assist forum members with options similar to above that will be enabled based on what they are allowed to perform within the forums. All this would be taken care of from the front-end with small icons / menus as opposed to visiting the admin area.

> Next... I have paid subscribers, these subscribers are in thier own member group and have access to additional forums, I would like to setup my forums to moderate new topics only... but this only effects the non subscribed users, this would spur more paid members because it would remove this delay in thier post and ultimately improve the level of content since your instigators and boneheads wouldnt want to pay to make stupid posts.

Let me see if i understand you correctly. Basically within your paid subscribers forum you would like all new paid subscriber posts to be initially moderated by any responses to this post not moderated so they receive an answer quickly ? Is that correct ?

> One last thing... and this is gingerbread... if your in a group (my paid subscribers for instance) Im wondering if there is a good way to assign an icon to denote folders with availability beyond the "registered users". This way if you look at all the forums.. you'd see which ones are "additional" that you have access to vs the ones the general public sees. Obviously if you dont have access you wouldnt see anything so the icon just helps those higher up the food chain to differentiate forums... thus keeping someone from wondering why a new topic or post isnt getting the attention they figured it might.

Now that is mustard. Let me investigate ways to acheive this. I suspect we could associate default icons with member groups and then if the forum only has 1 member group association display the icon associated with that member group ?

I'm reworking InstantForum.NET at the moment but once the main architectural changes are out the way permissions and member groups will be a focus.

I would certainly like to at least include your first suggestions (edit, move, delete for moderators) within the 3.5 release along with the ability to associate more than one member group to a forum member.

I've added your suggestions to the list Any further suggestions that would make your life easier on a day to day basis administrating your forums please let me know

Explore our products...
http://demos.instantasp.co.uk/

Let me see if i understand you correctly. Basically within your paid subscribers forum you would like all new paid subscriber posts to be initially moderated by any responses to this post not moderated so they receive an answer quickly ? Is that correct ?

Nope.. must be line noise.

What I am saying is that if you're a new person on my board or you have elected NOT to become a paid subscriber, anytime you create a NEW topic, your post is held pending a moderators approval.

Paid subscribers can create a new topic without this approval process unless the forum has been specifically set otherwise.

This becomes an incentive to become a subscribing member as well as allows for more control over new or unknown users. On my board new users are encouraged to go to a central spot to "introduce" themselves, with this approval process, moderators can watch for inflamatory posts as well as direct new people to appropriate posting locations.

Clearer now?

Hi Mark,

This makes perfect sense I think it would be best just to assoicate permissions with member groups. For example you could create a "Member Group" for your subscribers and set the permissions to allow them to post without approval and for the "Forum Members" member group set this so they require approval.

My only concern with this method is the fact with v3.5 you will have the ability to assoicate multiple member groups to each user so the administrator must enforce only a single member group assoication if the permissions are to work as expected.

Nice suggestion

Explore our products...
http://demos.instantasp.co.uk/

Here is one for thought.

The admin logs in, selects a user he/she would like to PROMOTE to what Im calling a "SuperMod" or "SubAdmin". The admin would have an interface that had SuperMod settings.. these settings would allow the admin to define what SuperMods could do with a series of checkboxes etc.

Ban User

Add Forum

Delete User

Edit User

Edit Posts (all non admin/supermods)

Delete Posts (same restriction)

Ultimately, you'd be able to give as much power or as little power to your SuperMods as you felt they needed. This would give many of us the ability to have a staff of users that could manage the board in our admin absence and facilitate many of the smaller issues... thus delegating tasks.