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Secret forums


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Posted

I'd like to have a way to have a forum that exists, but you can't get to it by any link or drop down menu on the board.

It would be for logged in memebrs, but they would have to manually type in the show forum= number to see it.

It would also be helpful to be able to change the forum number to something with three or four digits to prevent accidental discovery of it. I like this idea better than having a password protected forum.

I'd also like a way for moderators to be able to create forums without having access to the ACP.

Posted

I'd like to have a way to have a forum that exists, but you can't get to it by any link or drop down menu on the board.



It would be for logged in memebrs, but they would have to manually type in the show forum= number to see it.



It would also be helpful to be able to change the forum number to something with three or four digits to prevent accidental discovery of it. I like this idea better than having a password protected forum.



I'd also like a way for moderators to be able to create forums without having access to the ACP.



I would argue that even with a random digit as the ID it is never going to be secure, all that needs to happen is one member to paste a link to someone else, or link to a topic in that forum elsewhere on your board, and the secret is out,

You can already come up with some fairly intricate permissions systems using permission masks/group overrides etc, so you could quite easily hide the forum completely from anyone who shouldn't have access it.

For those that should be able to access it, it's much more convenient IMO to have the link right there in front of you :)
Posted

I had a friend who has a vbulletin, and he had a secret forum like that. The old members who had been there for awhile knew about it, and knew which forum # to type in.

The unwritten rule about it was not to talk about it on the other boards, like fight club. This kept the noobs from knowing about it until they earned some trust.

The one I have now can't be seen except for the drop down navigation menu. If I could just get rid of it there, I would be happy.

Of course, I'm still waitng for my upgrade from 2.0.3, which may be part of the problem. I've submitted three tickets this past week, but it looks like only one was recieved.

Posted

Why not simply let seasoned members be ina special group that sees the forum, while others (e.g. newbies) do not.



That would be a more logical solution I think, yes :)
Posted

I would argue that even with a random digit as the ID it is never going to be secure, all that needs to happen is one member to paste a link to someone else, or link to a topic in that forum elsewhere on your board, and the secret is out,



You can already come up with some fairly intricate permissions systems using permission masks/group overrides etc, so you could quite easily hide the forum completely from anyone who shouldn't have access it.



For those that should be able to access it, it's much more convenient IMO to have the link right there in front of you :)



I have done this very thing for a few forums on my boards already. It works very well.
Posted

yes but for Admin, you see every blasted forum you have on the index, sometimes thats ALOT of forums. I personally hate seeing all the ones i have, even tried to consolidate them, just to find out the members get confused.

It would just be nice to have that option again.

im about to help a fried upgrade his 1.3 board to the newest version, will work and see if there is a way to convert it to work.

Posted

This feature is there o.o



Just give groups the read permission but not the show permission :)


That doesn't work. If you try to enter the URL manually you get a missing files error because the forum cache ignores any forums you can't view, even if you have read permissions. It's rather annoying because when 2.0 was announced, this was going to be a feature, and I built several parts of my site around that being the plan, and then the feature never materialized, so I had to hack around it.
Posted

I don't understand why this can't be done with permissions. I have a private forum for the regulars to use only. I simply created a new group, gave them all the same permissions as a regular member with the added forum included. Then I added the perople I wanted to see the forum to that group. Ta da, no one speaks of it as the rules state and if I want more people to see it I can either add them or choose to promote them to that group after so many posts.

I'm not sure there are any added benefits to what you're suggesting.

Posted

For me the benefit would be the Forum wouldnt show up on the Forum Index

Currently I have 46 Forums showing on my index that number does not include subforums of those.

some of these forums i want to just HIDE off the index, but members can still access them.


Yes the Permission Mask does some of the work, but not all of it

Posted

Why not just collapse the forums with the nifty javascript +/- things. It sets a cookie, so even if you log out and return they will remain collapsed till the cookie is wiped out.

Personally, I don't see any benefit to doing this, and it's likely to confuse a LOT of people.

Posted

ive tried that too, but it only lets me have 1 forum collapsed at a time, if i select multiple ones it only does it for the last one i checked

Edit: weird that feature is working now for me. yes it would confuse some members it would just be nice to have the ability to do it again.

Posted

Huh? That's a bug in your installation then. You can collapse as many categories as you like, including every one if you wanted. If it's a custom skin, doublecheck on the default IPB skin. If you still have the issue there, please submit a support ticket. :)

Posted

Why not just collapse the forums with the nifty javascript +/- things. It sets a cookie, so even if you log out and return they will remain collapsed till the cookie is wiped out.



Personally, I don't see any benefit to doing this, and it's likely to confuse a LOT of people.




Can someone point me in the right direction on where the mod and|or the discussion is for expandable - collapsable forums. I'v tries to search for it, and only manage to get just general conversions about it.


Cheers
Chris
Posted

its based off a pc game, most of the forums are people that make things for it.



You mean like:

Catagory 1: Skins
User 1's skins
User 2's skins
User 3's skins

etc. Your forums are named after the people that post within them?

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.
Posted

You mean like:



Catagory 1: Skins


User 1's skins


User 2's skins


User 3's skins



etc. Your forums are named after the people that post within them?



Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.



yep basically like that
Posted

Can someone point me in the right direction on where the mod and|or the discussion is for expandable - collapsable forums. I'v tries to search for it, and only manage to get just general conversions about it.




Cheers


Chris


:blink:

There is no mod needed for this. It is on the forum's index on the right side of the Forum Section with the + / - buttons which allows you expand (+) or collapse (-) the forum(s).
Posted

:blink:



There is no mod needed for this. It is on the forum's index on the right side of the Forum Section with the + / - buttons which allows you expand (+) or collapse (-) the forum(s).



lol don't give me that look :P

Sorry i thought we were talking about the IPSBeyond type collapsable forums.

My bad....
Chris

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