Forum Permission Mysteries!

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:35 pm

I appologize for this newbie question, but I have wasted literally hours trying to figure out how to get the Forum Permissions to work the way I want them to. I have searched here. I have searched on the phpBB forums and User Guide, and it is just confounding me.

I do not like the Journal tool that comes with Nuke nor their variants. I have just read too many horror stories of security issues, plus, the interface is somewhat clunky. So, for my small family / close friend Portal site, I decided to try and use the Forums to accomplish this. I want to get the following behaviours:

1) I set up a category called Public Journals and another called Private Journals

2) For the Public Journals, I want to create a Forum for each user that wishes to have a personal public journal.

3) I want the Forum to behave as such: only registered users can View, Read, Reply, Edit, Delete, and Vote (and I set the Forum up as such).

4) I want just the Forum's journal user to be able to: Do all the above, plus Post, Sticky and Announce, but to not be able to do the same on everyone else's personal forums.

5) Obviously, I want Moderators and/or Admins (me) to be able to do everything and I do not want these permissions to impact other more traditional forums I have.

I can't seem to get the behaviour I want unless I make my Journal user an Administrator (Forum), but then he would have access to all the other Forums to do anything he wishes. Also, once I set him up as an Admin, I can't seem to figure out how to set him back to User. Everytime I try, when I come back to look at his permissions, he is still set to Administrator.

Incredibly frustrating!

Bang Head

Can someone please help this Newbie figure out just how to work these dang permissions in Forums???? I'll be eternally indebted...

montego

Sells PC To Pay For Divorce Joined: Posts: 5661

well some things are not possible maybe this will help a little... [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ]

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 8:27 pm

Sorry, hitwalker, but there is little to no details in the referenced documents with regards to what IS possible vs. what is NOT possible. I am really needing an experienced phpBB admin to tell me if the scenario I presented IS possible or not and if it IS, how the heck do I go about configuring the Forum, because I have tried everything I could possibly think of.

P.S. In case it matters at all, I do have NSN Groups 1.6.1 installed. However, I was not under the impression that it impacted how groups were USED by phpBB, but rather how they get created and users assigned to them.

Regards,
montego

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 10:20 pm

It sounds like you need to do a blog of some sort.

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:27 am

montego wrote:

I appologize for this newbie question, but I have wasted literally hours trying to figure out how to get the Forum Permissions to work the way I want them to. I have searched here. I have searched on the phpBB forums and User Guide, and it is just confounding me.

I do not like the Journal tool that comes with Nuke nor their variants. I have just read too many horror stories of security issues, plus, the interface is somewhat clunky. So, for my small family / close friend Portal site, I decided to try and use the Forums to accomplish this. I want to get the following behaviours:

1) I set up a category called Public Journals and another called Private Journals

2) For the Public Journals, I want to create a Forum for each user that wishes to have a personal public journal.

3) I want the Forum to behave as such: only registered users can View, Read, Reply, Edit, Delete, and Vote (and I set the Forum up as such).

4) I want just the Forum's journal user to be able to: Do all the above, plus Post, Sticky and Announce, but to not be able to do the same on everyone else's personal forums.

5) Obviously, I want Moderators and/or Admins (me) to be able to do everything and I do not want these permissions to impact other more traditional forums I have.

I can't seem to get the behaviour I want unless I make my Journal user an Administrator (Forum), but then he would have access to all the other Forums to do anything he wishes. Also, once I set him up as an Admin, I can't seem to figure out how to set him back to User. Everytime I try, when I come back to look at his permissions, he is still set to Administrator.

Incredibly frustrating!

Bang Head

Can someone please help this Newbie figure out just how to work these dang permissions in Forums???? I'll be eternally indebted...

montego

Cheers,

Please let me first assure you by stating that this is an absolute can-do!

Quote:

1) I set up a category called Public Journals and another called Private Journals

OK, copy that...this is a clear one...let's move on...

Quote:

2) For the Public Journals, I want to create a Forum for each user that wishes to have a personal public journal.

OK, so be it <-> you'll create those Forums as you wish...let's move on again...

Quote:

3) I want the Forum to behave as such: only registered users can View, Read, Reply, Edit, Delete, and Vote (and I set the Forum up as such).

phpBB-Administration -> Forum Admin -> Permissions (Forum Permissions Control) -> [Look up Forum]

Now, in this particular instance you'll just assign the proper "Viewpoint Configs" - in the above depicted case, you'd most propably pick/choose;

1) choose/select Forum to alter "rights"
2) select pre-configured "Forum Permissions Control" or customize it yourself Case Specifically

<=> the above operations will dictate the rights associated with registered Users regarding to "Forum Journal(s)"

Quote:

4) I want just the Forum's journal user to be able to: Do all the above, plus Post, Sticky and Announce, but to not be able to do the same on everyone else's personal forums.

Roger. The most flexible choice is in that particular case to promote each legimate Forum Journal "OWNER" as an UNIQUE Moderator of that particular FORUM under Public Journals Category. This will be carried out by creating USERGROUPS per EACH FORUM JOURNAL. So, there will be as many USERGROUPS for these purposes as there are "FORUM JOURNAL OWNERS".

<=> as a Moderator, the rightful "FORUM JOURNAL OWNER" may choose to perform ANY OPERATIONS he/she wishes to his/her FORUM ONLY.

So, eventually, each "Forum Journal" will be managed by three (3) Moderator Groups;

* Admins (traditional admins)
* Moderators (traditional moderators)
* Moderator-X's (FORUM JOURNAL Moderators) <--- there's only a single person in a USERGROUP per "FORUM JOURNAL"

<=> MOderator-X is the "person whos Forum Journal is in question"

Quote:

5) Obviously, I want Moderators and/or Admins (me) to be able to do everything and I do not want these permissions to impact other more traditional forums I have.

Yes, indeed - a very clever move. This was the very reason for emphasizing the fact of the Moderator Line-Up above;

--> So, your Big Picture will have a great resemblance to the one underbeneath:

* Admins (traditional admins)
* Moderators (traditional moderators)
* Moderator-X's (journal Moderators)

Now, how should you define the USERGROUP RIGHTS for the "FORUM JOURNAL Moderators"?

Proceed as follows;

phpBB-Administration -> Group Admin ---> Permissions (Group Permissions Control)

step#1 : select a USERGROUP (each usergroup represent a sub-set/group of potential moderators) [Look up Group]
step#2 : allow/disallow "Forum Moderator Priviledges" for each Group at a time ACCORDING TO YOUR ADMINISTRATION SCHEME/PLAN

<=> You'll need to create/generate one (1) UserGroup per "Forum (Public) Journal" - in each of the UserGroups, there's only the person associated who's Forum Journal in in question.

Quote:

I can't seem to get the behaviour I want unless I make my Journal user an Administrator (Forum), but then he would have access to all the other Forums to do anything he wishes. Also, once I set him up as an Admin, I can't seem to figure out how to set him back to User. Everytime I try, when I come back to look at his permissions, he is still set to Administrator.

I understand this - however, as it was stated above this is not even a dilemma, there's workaround for it; assigning UserGroups.

You'll simply assign a UserGroup per each person having a Forum Journal - you'll then further assign that person as a Forum Moderator (along with the traditional Admins and traditional Moderators).

If you need any further assistance, I'm prepared to collaborate further, as/if needed.

Thank you for presenting an interesting series of questions!

Hope this helps.

BR,

-beetraham

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:53 am

I would create groups with access to those forums and add people to said groups, the perms you set for the group will pass on to any user that is part of it.

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 10:03 pm

beetraham (and Chat),

You were a tremendous help! beetraham, especially, I thank your for the detail that you provided in your post. It was necessary for me to wade through the seemingly strange permissions model in phpBB. I would have expected to have been able to even assign an individual to have specific rights on a forum, overriding anything set above him, but that was not the case.

Your instructions have worked PERFECTLY and I am off and running!

Wave

Thanks guys!

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:53 am

It's nice to hear things have worked out fine!

Thanks!

-beetraham