Multi Moderation

[NETWizz]

Good Day,

AlienCC and I are going to do some experiments with permissions masks as overrides for users. This will allow us to add various masks and overide an offencers ability to do certain things without actually changing his or her group. Best of all, we could still easily find people with these masks.

Another thing we plan to do is disable all member groups to the state of banned. I.e. set all groups, so that nobody can do anything. Then apply some masks to each group. This would override the inablility to do stuff by granting the masks ability.

Next, we are going to setup various topic multi moderation for the first time. This means we are going to make a customized toolbox for our moderators. In other words, moderators will not be able to pin, unpin, delete, move, ... they won't be able to do much to whole topics anymore. Instead, they will have a toolbox that lets tehm do safe things.

i.e. Move to Pending Move. The idea here is that moderators will be encourged to move inappropriate topics to a pending move topic. All moderators will be in a secondary group appending their permissions as Members or UTI members, which will allow our moderators to see this "Pending Move" topic forum.

Here is one of my ideas:

A moderator sees an inappropriate topic.

The moderator can do one of 2 things with it:

Move to "Pending Move"

Another option is to move the item to "Pending Move" set it invisible, and add Request Trash from Forum:

This way, an admin decides whether to complete the delete or return it.


If a moderator decides to move something, a move will take 2 steps.

To move:
Moderator sends topic to "Pending Move"

MOderator in appropriate topic moves topic into his/her area

In other words, we add an intermediate step. This will pervent someone from dumping topics into someone elses moderated space. Essentially, a moderator must accept a topic.


I have much experimenting to do to make all this work. AlienCC will help and I will keep you posted with more info.


Please post ideas and suggestions. I will keep everybody in the loop. Also don't worry, all UTI-STAFF will remain UTI STAFF. If you can see this forum, you will still be able to do whatever you want wherever you want anywhere on this forum. In other words, you will still have 100% permissions to everything except the AdminCP.

[DarkerLine]

The permissions mask idea is an excellent one in my opinion; there have been a lot of things over the years that it would've made easier.

However, the "toolbox" idea, I think, only adds unnecessary red tape. At best, it would make a topic "disappear" for a day. This stops people from getting the prompt help we are known for. It might kill a conversation by introducing a day-long gap. It might make a newbie who doesn't know where the topic went start a new one.

And a moderator not being able to pin or unpin a topic is ridiculous. Say I'm moderating Math & Science and I think a topic is really great and want to pin it. I do what, move it to some invisible "Pending Pin" forum, making all of United-TI wonder what happened to that great thread, until some staff member says, "Yeah, pin that," pins it, and moves it back?

If we didn't trust our moderators, we wouldn't have appointed them. And if we do trust them, we ought to let them make decisions instead of essentially asking another mod to do it for them every time.

[AlienCC]

My biggest concern really was just for topics that got deleted for no good reason. As far as I'm concerned everything else has been fine as far as moderation goes.

--AlienCC

[NETWizz]

Okay, the moderation toolkit is going to be complete except when it comes to deletion and moves.

[AlienCC]

You are over complicating something that just needs minor changes, over the past few years we have only had a couple of incidents resulting from too many permissions being granted. This doesn't mean revamp everything, it means minor tweaking what we already have in place.

You shouldn't disassemble an entire cars engine just because it's time to change the oil.

--AlienCC

[Weregoose]

To set the mood here, I'm not buying the new setup. As the TI-Basic moderator, I had to move/close/edit topics frequently; if this new world order is established, it'll feel to a moderator that his decisions have to be babysat through the system in order to take effect, removing the whole employer-to-employee "I believe you'll do a good job" factor.

Similarly to what DarkerLine said, I don't think it's practical (plus, we haven't a good enough reason) to safeguard our topics from the same people chosen to watch over them in the first place. I just have to ask: What is the greater good achieved by doing this? I see none.

Balance the prevention and the cure.

At the risk of sounding coarse, this won't have my signature.

[alexrudd]

I don't like the new ideas for "pending move" and "pending delete" (trash can suffices)

However, the broader idea of permission masks sounds like a good improvement.

[NETWizz]

Hello,

I have made a few changes to the permissions.

Here they are:

1. I edited the Calc.org Archive Sorters permission Mask and set it to have only permissions toe the Calc.org Archive Sorting Forum. All it has is Global + Calc.org

2. I removed the Calc.org Members Group, but let me explain.

3. I did plenty of experiments to verify it works. Here is how to setup the Calc.org sorters.

*. Edit a member's Profile in AdminCP. Go down to "Posting and Access Restrictions" and then check the box for "Override Group Permission Mask with..."

*. Hold down control and click their member group and then also click the Calc.org File Sorters Mask. I.e. this means on a member you will select both the Members and the Calc.org mask. For a UTI-Member, you must select both the UTI Members and the Calc.org Mask. This will apply two sets of permissions mask to a user while still leaving them in their group. I.e. they are still a Member, Supporter, UTI Member, ... their permissions do not change in that respect because you override the group with its own permissions then you select Calc.org File Sorters Mask to append to their permissions.

*. The Calc.org File Sorters Mask has all righs including upload permissions.


THe benefit is this: If we go into the "Manage Permission Masks" Area, it shows us everyone who has the masks applied. Then all we have to do is click on the members with the calc.org mask and then next to each member click on remove all maks. They will be returned to their default group with no overides set.

I have included a picture.

[NETWizz]

I setup the multi moderation and applied it to all of our moderators. NOw deleteing it moves it to the trash and says where it is from.