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Two things IP.Board desperately neeeds

Guest Luke

By Guest Luke
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Luke Mentor

Luke

Posted
Posted

Over the past two or three months we have had some people attack our site with various methods, whether it be making obscene posts, making threats by email, or private message by different ip addresses.

Already some of my management are thinking about turning on Admin validation. I already know they do a lot of work on the site, and I know by doing this they are going to double their work load.

I don't know about any of your sites, but there are far fewer admins than there are moderators. On a busy site like ours I see turning on admin validation as out of the question. It might work for smaller sites, but not with a big site that gets 100 new registrations a day. But still, something has to be done about people like this, especially in times where they seem determined to cause trouble.

Moderator preview is a very useful tool because you can make a members new posts invisible and check them out before they are seen by the general public. But there are only two ways of using moderator preview that makes it useless as a problem member filter like admin validation can be. The first way is by making new posts in a certain forum automatically be invisible, whether it be a new topic, new post, or both. This happens for everyone that isn't a moderator. The second way is if a moderator applies a warning to an offending member.

What I would REALLY like to see is a group option. A new member registers and their posts are automatically on moderator preview until they have made x amount of posts and are promoted to another group that isn't on moderator preview. That way you can use it as a filter, and you can balance that load between moderators and admins... Admin's don't have to validate accounts constantly. With a forum like mine that has 4 admins and 20+ moderators, that would be highly ideal.

The second thing is how moderator preview works that makes it completely useless. When a member makes a post and they are under moderator preview it briefly says something about it in the redirect and leads back to the forum. The member can not see their post, and if they didn't see the message they're like "where did my post go?" and attempt to post it again. They end up posting the same thing 3 times. Also if the member knows they are under moderator preview and cannot see their post they are more inclined to behave until they are no longer under moderator preview. Once they're off of it they go back to causing trouble again... And if they're a real big trouble maker it can cause a lot of problems. It would be MUCH better if the person making the post was able to see their post/topic and NOT know they are under moderator preview. That way a moderator is able to watch someone closely without any damage being done to the site (especially when it's a kids site).

Now some of these things, among other things, I have brought here many times. You have to understand that I run a family friendly kids site and I depend on you to give me the ability to keep it that way. I could always make modifications to my site to make those features available, but I have done so many times and I am just sick and tired of having to mod something that should be there anyway. It takes time: It takes a lot of time to make these changes myself. And more and more do I find myself not having much time to do these things.

Other things I have brought up before:

- Being able to disable/hide the year option on birthday. You don't have any idea how many kids, after listening to "how to be safe online" do not want their age being displayed.
- Disable someone's PM ability via warn panel, but still allow the member to send/receive messages to a moderator or admin. + Same thing, but with a group option (specifically for validating members)
- Disable someone's ability to enter the chat room, if enabled on site, via warn panel. (Or better yet ability to expand warning panel yourself)
- Ability to make notes in warn panel without incrementing warning level.
- Other groups besides ROOT admin being able to see anonymously logged in members.

All the other features I can think of, besides the ones I've listed, would be just nice to have.... They would be neat, but these, for me, are the most critical. And I'm sure others would agree with me. My main administrator, Teena, works very very hard to keep things running smoothly on our site. Sometimes she's on ten hours a day. You may think that is extreme, but you don't know what's been going on lately... I would really like to be able to make things easier for her, especially after the trouble we've had the last two or three months.

I'm willing to go as far as donating money to IPS just to get these particular items in as soon as possible, so they can finally become permanent.

tomturd2 Explorer

tomturd2

Posted
Posted

We have a similar problem to what you have. When a user registers they get put into 'pre members' and can post in a single forum only. They can't use the whole forum without being 'screened' first because we get so many kids signing up who just spam the whole place. For years we have been validating (moving members from pre members to members) manually - reading the forum, checking posts, changing member group and so on. just last week I made this mod which speeds up the process massively,

validator.JPG

If you would like me to send it to you I can, its all pretty simple and you could modify the code to show your 'pre member group' members very easily. Let me know :)

bfarber Grand Master

bfarber

Posted
Posted

I'm ok with all of your suggestions except one.

It would be MUCH better if the person making the post was able to see their post/topic and NOT know they are under moderator preview



I can appreciate why this might be useful for you however I think on the vast majority of sites it would be highly confusing for members to not realize they are on moderator preview. I'm not opposed to adding a way for members to see their own (moderated) topics/posts, but I think it should be in the same pink/red/alt CSS that is currently used when moderators/admins see those same hidden topics/posts.

Curious what others think..
Luke Mentor

Luke

Posted
Posted

Well if it's a problem how about having two types of moderator preview? (queue value = 1 or 2)

Being on moderator preview is like "ok I'm being watched by a moderator I better be good for now". If they didn't know they were on moderator preview it would allow a moderator to keep a close eye on a member without them knowing.

The problems we are currently having is from a particular site. They keep on registering on our site and keep causing trouble. Yesterday they posted pornographic material. It was caught it a minute thankfully, but what if it wasn't?

That's why it would be good if I could keep a new member under moderator preview for their first 10 posts or so without them knowing they are under it. For these particular people if they knew they were under moderator preview they would make "fake posts" until they got past the screen. Once they got past it they would do their intended damage. Then after the post is found and deleted, they start all over again with another IP address.

Them not knowing they are under a preview makes them think the post was seen by everyone, but in reality only be seen by a moderator who can quickly take care of it before it sees the light of day.

3DKiwi Rising Star

3DKiwi

Posted
Posted

We moderate all new members first 2 posts at my site to prevent the spammers posting their rubbish. Since doing this we've virtually eliminated spam and the spammers don't seem to bother now with my site. After 2 posts the member is auto promoted to the regular members group that avoids the moderation queue. So what Luke describes is doable now. It's just a matter of creating a new regular members group and renaming the old member group "New member". You then run a simple mySql query to move members with x amount of posts into the regular member group. You then have to enable moderation on all forums and on the regular member group enable "Avoid moderation queue".

The problem we have is that hardly anyone reads the rules and even though we've got in large bold type that new members first few posts won't show up many new members post several times as they don't see their post so I agree that messages waiting to be moderated need to be viewable by both the new member and to moderators. This would make life easier for everyone. We get around 20 new members per day.

The other suggestions sound good to me.

3DKiwi

Luke Mentor

Luke

Posted
Posted

Just wanted to point out that where it is possible to promote a user to another group by posts, it is not possible to place a member under moderator preview for all forums by group. It is only possible to give that user access to a forum with moderator preview on, but not for all active forums (as far as I can find).

wickedfpoop Explorer

wickedfpoop

Posted
Posted

That's why it would be good if I could keep a new member under moderator preview for their first 10 posts or so without them knowing they are under it. For these particular people if they knew they were under moderator preview they would make "fake posts" until they got past the screen. Once they got past it they would do their intended damage. Then after the post is found and deleted, they start all over again with another IP address.



Them not knowing they are under a preview makes them

think

the post was seen by everyone, but in reality only be seen by a moderator who can quickly take care of it before it sees the light of day.



Well, if they were versed well enough in IP.Board knowledge, they could always check the change logs to see a feature such as this had been added. Now, I understand your point but what if

A. they quote someone, or directly say something to someone in a post with no response? If this is a valid member, they'll think that the community is ignoring them, which in turn, would probably be bad for that community.

Or B. they get mad because someone doesn't respond to something they had said directly, post a bunch of hateful messages and end up finally hitting their 'moderated' post limit and come outta the gate, for lack of a better term, swinging while everyone else goes 'wtf is he/she talking about?'.

Now with B. I'm sure you're implying that the moderator be watching them and their limit and have to manually approve them once hitting the limit. But if it's nice innocent member in example A. then they're probably going to be paranoid as to what else you're watching and essentially leave your forum and tell everyone else about what happened. :)

This is all situational of course but I'm sure with a system such as that, you'll run into both situations and more that I can't think of off the top of my head.
bfarber Grand Master

bfarber

Posted
Posted

I will just say this - IF we were to implement what you are suggesting (where a member does not KNOW they are being moderated) it would definitely need to be a setting. I wouldn't want it to work that way on MY site.

Luke Mentor

Luke

Posted
Posted

That sounds fair :). Instead of a setting, what about two different level/severities of invisibility? Invisible posts have a queue setting of "1" where visible posts are set to "0". If it is set to "2" then the owner, who can see their own posts/topics regardless, does not know it is invisible. If it is set to 1 they know it is invisible because of the background shade, and possibly a message in the post stating that it is invisible.

Rοb Community Regular

Rοb

Posted
Posted

I will just say this - IF we were to implement what you are suggesting (where a member does not KNOW they are being moderated) it would definitely need to be a setting. I wouldn't want it to work that way on MY site.


I would love to have that option and would implement it straight away.

I agree with Luke, it would be a decent line of defence against troublemakers and if settable per forum would make it entirely possible to have a "HelpDesk/Support Ticket section" where users can only see their own threads but moderators can see/participate in them all...
Cherrymenthol Newbie

Cherrymenthol

Posted
Posted

I have a site support forum where guest posting is enabled, but we have post moderation enabled, so they spam it up to the brim, and we just send it all to the trashcan, members don't see it. They don't bother registering then either.

Michael P Explorer

Michael P

Posted
Posted

For seeing your own queues posts - why not have a message display in the post or at the top of the topic? saying that the post is in the moderator queue and will need to be approved before other members see it.

For people who don't realise they are in the mod Q and they don't see the message on redirect, they wonder where their post went and post again.

Edit: Didnt see 3DKiwis post - something like that would be good!

Jonessie Apprentice

Jonessie

Posted
Posted

I'm ok with all of your suggestions except one.


I can appreciate why this might be useful for

you

however I think on the vast majority of sites it would be highly confusing for members to not realize they are on moderator preview. I'm not opposed to adding a way for members to see their own (moderated) topics/posts, but I think it should be in the same pink/red/alt CSS that is currently used when moderators/admins see those same hidden topics/posts.



Curious what others think..



I agree with what your saying here Brandon.
.Ryan Enthusiast

.Ryan

Posted
Posted

I'm ok with all of your suggestions except one.


I can appreciate why this might be useful for

you

however I think on the vast majority of sites it would be highly confusing for members to not realize they are on moderator preview. I'm not opposed to adding a way for members to see their own (moderated) topics/posts, but I think it should be in the same pink/red/alt CSS that is currently used when moderators/admins see those same hidden topics/posts.



Curious what others think..



Well I agree with Lukes standpoint and think that its a good idea, except big brother is watching your posts and you don't know it. I am cool with the idea, except I am not sure I would use it. Their should be a setting that

1) The end user completely does not know they are being moderated
2) The end user sees a red css whatever... near the bottom of the post saying Pending Moderation: any we can input additional comments, like when a admin edits a post!
3) Members in a certain group will have their first x amount of posts randomly moderated for x period of time. That way they don't get suspicious and you can check up on them occasionally.

I honestly think we need a moderator center or something in the next version of IPB. Not to compare too much to a competeting forum but PHPBB3 has something like that and I think its great. You can manage announcements, warns, bans, ect, mod que - now IPB does not need to copy that but a centralized system where we can manage things like this would be fantastic.

She turned on admin validation... here we go...



*Calls in Reinforcements*
Logan Mentor

Logan

Posted
Posted

I really like Luke's ideas and agree that they should all make it into IPB. I also agree with bfarber, that if the feature to allow users to view their own moderated posts/topics it should be a setting and also color coded.

I'm 100% for the other ones as well:

- Being able to disable/hide the year option on birthday. You don't have any idea how many kids, after listening to "how to be safe online" do not want their age being displayed.


- Disable someone's PM ability via warn panel, but still allow the member to send/receive messages to a moderator or admin. + Same thing, but with a group option (specifically for validating members)


- Disable someone's ability to enter the chat room, if enabled on site, via warn panel. (Or better yet ability to expand warning panel yourself)


- Ability to make notes in warn panel without incrementing warning level.


- Other groups besides ROOT admin being able to see anonymously logged in members.



I don't know why the warn panel still hasn't been brought "up-to date" with more disciplinary features, I'd especially like to see that. Mainly for super moderators who don't have access to the ACP, and would like to for example: disable ability to PM.

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