Hi all,

As i said before i/we are running the ancient UBB 6.2.0. And I have not yet suggested to the site owner that we upgrade to a better version.

Do the updated versions allow the admins to appoint mods who have limited authority? Meaning that i'd like to give some members the ability to ban spammers but i wouldn't want to give them access to the PMs of other users. I'd want to give them limited authority without giving them full authority.

If and when i got our forum running proper again i'm sure we could use the assistance of other users as mods who could delete spammers/bots etc. But i'd rather them have assistant moderator status as opposed to full admin status. I'd prefer to reserve full Admin status for myself and the site owner.

Any thoughts? Is my question clear?

(thanks in advance)

In answer to your post using ubbthreads 7.5.3
Moderators work the same as in classic for moderating forums.
You can allow moderators access to the control panel but they are pretty much limited to member management. They can ban a member, Resend passwords and change several user settings. They don't have access to PM's or other moderators or admins.

On the subject of PM's the only person that can access them is .
1. Whoever has access to the MYSQL tables.
2. Admins only have the ability to become a member in the member management area of the control panel. Then that person could view PMs the normal method a user has.

As far as passwords nobody can see a password as it is encrypted

Like I believe I said before you can setup a demo at this site for a couple of days to see these options for yourself.

DEMO

Thanks Ruben!!!!



And i'm sorry for you having to repeat yourself for me. Ooops!

I don't think that a moderator has access to "become" a member with the "edit user" permission in reguards to access to the CP; I think you'd have to grant them the "Full Access" permission to do so (which I dont' know anyone would do such a thing for a "mod").

v7.3+ (I think it was 7.3 or 7.4) there is a built in "Global Moderator" position which is like an admin without the CP access; there are also granular permissions for just about any task so you can ultimately customize groups with what type of access you'd want people to have who belong to them.

In short, just setup the global moderator group to have edit user permissions and assign people to that position to weed out trolls; as long as they don't have "full cp access" permissions enabled they won't be able to "become user" and read PM's.

Keep forgetting about global moderators. Since I don't use it.
But the same rules apply to them in the control panel. You can allow full access. Which might as well be a admin. Or limited access.
But anyway Giz. A moderator can't edit any other mod or admin. Nor can they become a member. At least in v7.5.3 because I checked it.

Thanks to both of you!

Ruben, have you tried becoming a member with the "full access" tick? I'm pretty sure that's the gravy to making it so any group can become a user...

No, I have never set a moderator group to full access to the control panel on a live board.
I have tested it but still there are some small limitations.
It is misleading that they have full access to the control panel when in fact they don't.
Even though it appears that all items in the control panel are accessible there are some things that are not.
The moderators still don't have access to "become a member"
But they have access to change the paths, mysql login, etc
Like I said it seems to me then they might as well be set to a admin if you wish a member to have full access.

Yeh, I don't really like the full access concept, I figure if they need full access they'd be an admin

I sat and rewrote all the permissions for what can and cant be accessed by anyone but me. Even with full CP access you can not change the settings of the site unless your member number is set as the sites master admin.

Something I thought was missed by Rick when the CP was designed, built, and added upon many times over.

Well you can change the settings of the site as a moderator with cp access.
I just did it and changed the DB name and broke it.
Using v7.5.3

right but I had rewrote all that so if your not the master admin you cant change anything that will break the site.

I don't use the 7.5.3 as it has to many problems that were not resolved and expected to be resolved in 8.0

To me that is just a way to suck more money from my pocket. You should never close a version unless there is absolutely no bugs or problems existing. Unless your Microsoft.

Well, 8.0 was to be the next in the v7 but then changes needed to the CP and UI that've been requested since v7 started started getting added and required a major revision...

So your saying that the need for version 8 is more necessary then finalizing version 7?

What can be so seriously needed in version 8 over actually finishing and completing version 7?

I just do not see the point other then thinking that if the members actually want it to work as it was actually intended then they may have to update their renewal at $99 bucks a pop. That's sad man, seriously.

Even Microsoft still fixes bugs and releases updates in previous versions over a year past a new version release, or is InfoPop aka Groupee better then that?

v8 is just an upgrade; I think you're thinking too much into versioning... "finishing off" v7? v8 is still the same forum, just larger additions which will result in a major version adjustment...

Either way, if you intend to upgrade, regardless of if it's to v7 or v8 you'd need current member area access... It's how licenseware works...

What is that?

Well, with licenseware that the company sells licenses to that demand you renew your member area access; regardless of the version you want to upgrade to, you have to pay for the ability to download files.

So what are you trying to say, UBB is going to insist you constantly pay even if you do not want to upgrade anymore but want your crap to work properly?

Well, if you want to upgrade, you need member area access; the member area access is what you pay for... So yes, if you intend to upgrade you need to pay...

It works this way with plenty of scripts; in fact I believe we had a nag fit on this very topic about a year ago where several users included script providers which do the SAME thing...

Here is my 2 cents.
Agree or not, this software is structured the way it is. Read the license!
HERE
Did you not do so when you purchased it? So if you want to receive updates to a existing license or upgrade to a new version you must maintain a membership. Which has a cost.
So pay or not. It is up to the user.
I am fine with the way it is now, But I wish it would be something that allows people with a older version to still access the latest updates of the version currently used by the user. Regardless if the membership area has expired.
But it is what it is!

What about bug fixes for a version with out upgrading? UBB doesn't offer that. If there is a bug in one version and they decide not to fix it until the NEXT VERSION and your member access ran out your crap outta luck. No bug fixed product.

Well, if theres a *SECURITY* issue you can get updated copies of the code in the offending files from the support desk (last i had heard); but for bug fixes and feature enhancements you'll have to have valid member are access just like the rest of us... None of us (other than Rick and Dave) work for Groupee, we're all in the same boat and we renew to upgrade like everyone else...

Your missing my point Gizmo, totally.

There have been plenty of times where someone has opened up a support ticket for an older version that has a bug, and I've gone in and fixed that bug even though their members access has expired. If I just wanted everyone to upgrade, I'd just tell them to upgrade and close the ticket.

When someone posts on the forum and they are running something that is a couple versions old, it's usually just the better option to upgrade, since they can potentially fix a couple of the bugs from forum posts, there are usually more that have been addressed, and when we find bugs that are fairly easy to fix we'll post the fix in the forums as well. If our goal was to get everyone to upgrade so we can make more money, then we certainly wouldn't bother posting bug fixes when we can.

We released 7.5.3 which was a bug fix release because there were enough that warranted a bug fix release, even though we were working on 8.0 already. We wouldn't have released that if we were just trying to drag things out so everyone had to renew and upgrade.

There are a couple bugs that currently exist that just require a major change to the code, we certainly aren't going to do that for a maintenance release, those types of bugs are addressed during major releases.

There are some bugs that we've tried to fix multiple times, like the PM flashing indicator. The fixes that we've applied have worked on the majority of installs, but it seems we have a bit more work to do on that one.

We're not trying to suck money out of customers, delay releases so more people have to pay, etc. There are always going to be bugs, we try to address them properly without delaying development.