malicious moderation conduct - some features that could help to improve awareness and/or prevent it

[connorhawke]

I think there should be an option to send immediate email notifications to a specified email address (e.g. the admin's email address) regarding any moderation actions taken, and possibly also if someone edits someone else's post/topic/content, to help raise awareness of any potentially malicious conduct. Also, I think that any mass-moved topics should be specified in detail (e.g. provide a list of links of the moved topics), rather than just in general. Finally, I think that "super mods" should have settable moderation parameters, such as whether they can hard-delete posts or not, whether they can mass-move topics or not, etc., instead of virtually every moderation option always being available to super mods.

[bfarber]

I disagree about super moderators. The point of a super moderator is that they have ultimate moderation capabilities throughout the suite. You should use per-forum, etc. moderators if you want to fine-tune their moderation capabilities.

[connorhawke]

I currently use that for my global moderation groups, but it's not as streamlined since each group's moderation settings would always have to be updated if a new forum gets added. Nonetheless, it's quick to update, and doesn't happen often, so it's not too much trouble. I think the other two feature suggestions I mentioned are potentially more helpful.

[AndyF]

I do think forum level mods are best for this though. It is a lot easier now (in any 3.x version actually) to add another forum by simply editing their forum permissions on Manage Forums and adding that forum, compared to 2.x.

Global mods are just that, a basic rule of thumb I tend to think of with Global ones is "if they can see it, then they can moderate it"

[connorhawke]

True dat! What about the other feature suggestions? Any thoughts?

[AndyF]

The only suggestion I can think of is to allow the topic history to be viewable to any group that has mod control in the forum where the topic is located (ie: forum level mods and global mods) as they might want to review what the history of a topic is.

[• Jay •]

I disagree about super moderators. The point of a super moderator is that they have ultimate moderation capabilities throughout the suite. You should use per-forum, etc. moderators if you want to fine-tune their moderation capabilities.

With all due respect, this is a matter of opinion. Not all administrators will share this opinion.

Isn't it more important that administrators have the power to make changes to suit their site's operational procedure than moderators have power to do things that are against site policy?

Flexibility is power. Limitations weaken a product.

[Biker.GA]

The options are there, though. A "Super Moderator" has always been site wide, regardless of the software package used. If you want to limit what your moderators do, you should make them a forum moderator and adjust their permissions accordingly.

[bfarber]

Super moderators have ALWAYS been global moderators throughout the entire software suite. This is not a change, nor is it something we have current plans to change. Administrators already have the flexibility you are talking about - they can already create individual moderators to handle the content with fine-grained control of their permissions.

The reality is, a super moderator is basically a front-end administrator. Administrators should NOT have moderation powers on the front end inherently (even though, in reality, most people give their admins super moderator powers as well). With the administrator restrictions capabilities in the ACP, you can have skinners for instance that have ACP access but only to the look and feel manager - you may not want them moderating your site, however. This is possible. To account for this, super moderators have full moderation powers across the front end, and administrators do not automatically get moderation powers. When you want controlled moderators, you add per-forum moderators where you can limit their powers.

[• Jay •]

The reality is, a super moderator is basically a front-end administrator.

Administrators can have their abilities limited. Super moderators cannot.

Just because it has always been a certain way doesn't mean it is wrong to change course. That kind of thinking falls under the "Appeal to Tradition" logical fallacy.

[• Jay •]

Consider a board that has 50 forums. The administrator sets up 10 (limited) "super moderators" (which are forum moderators set up for all 50 forums) and 25 forum moderators that have the ability to moderate multiple forums (but not all).

Think about how cluttered and confusing the moderating team page will look using your approach.

[connorhawke]

Feel free to disregard my third suggestion assuming it probably won't be of much additional help in most situations.

However, I would really encourage consideration for the other two suggestions mentioned in the OP, namely,

(1) email notifications for moderation actions (it's possible to enable email notifications for very minor board errors; surely moderation actions are often more important?)

(2) in the moderator logs and/or elsewhere, enable the display of a detailed list of any threads/posts that are moved using the mass-move feature (if a mod disorganizes a board with some mass-moves, as has happened multiple times on my board, it can be easier to get the threads/posts back in the right places if there is a list of the threads/posts that were moved, where they were each moved from, where they have each been moved to, etc.) - in more extreme situations, reimporting a database backup may be more efficient overall, but there should be more efficient methods in less extreme situations

[bfarber]

I'm sorry Jay, I simply disagree - entirely. Super moderators are SUPER moderators. They should have global moderation privileges. Nothing in IP.Board requires you to actually have super moderators. There are not people inherently with unlimited moderation capabilities unless you GIVE them those capabilities (i.e. by placing them in a super moderator group).

In IP.Board 3.0 and above, you can make one moderator record and assign multiple forums (you no longer, as in earlier 2.x versions, have to add a moderator to each forum individually). Because of this, you can assign those 3 moderators to all of your forums in one go, and then if you need to change their permissions for all forums, you can do so by editing that moderator record once (and the changes apply to all forums they are assigned to). (As an aside, you can still assign the moderators to each of the forums individually, as before, if you need to give them different permissions for different forums).

The fact is, super moderators are designed to have global moderation capabilities. This works well. If you want to give limited moderation capabilities, you are able to do so.

[• Jay •]

It's just too bad that super moderators can do things forum moderators cannot, like editing or adding tags/prefixes to topics, IP Tools, Manage Announcements, Manage Members, etc.

g_is_supmod shouldn't exist in the code at all.

Bottom line, I'm just looking for some continuity. Super moderators have functionality that forum moderators don't, but we're told to give up those features if we want the flexibility of assigning permissions.

[bfarber]

Why don't we try to identify what it is super-mods can do that forum-mods can't, and then work towards enhancing the per-forum mods to give them more flexibility?

[Mcardle]

Why don't we try to identify what it is super-mods can do that forum-mods can't, and then work towards enhancing the per-forum mods to give them more flexibility?

I am not certain if this is in the software but an "Apply mod to all forums" tickbox would be nice

[• Jay •]

Why don't we try to identify what it is super-mods can do that forum-mods can't

Kinda surprised that the dev team doesn't know already, but I listed a number of things just above your post.