Group vs. single moderator permissions model is non-sensical

[Shariq Ansari]

Please see https://community.invisionpower.com/4bugtrack/active-reports/4152-moderator-permissions-are-subtractive-individual-vs-group-r9546/#comment-168732 for reference.

1. A user is a member of a group A, which is assigned as moderators to forums X, Y, and Z.
2. That same user has individual moderator privileges for forum B.
3. The current model ignores ALL of the group moderation rules for that user and ONLY respects the individual moderator privileges for a single forum.

IPS seem to think this makes sense, is intuitive, and is what most users would want.

I respectfully disagree, and believe that it makes no sense whatsoever, is counter-intuitive, is not what most users would want, is not how IPB 3.X worked, and reduces overall functionality by requiring duplicate data entry:

• If a user is a moderator of 89 different forums by virtue of being in a group, and...
• I want to make JUST THAT INDIVIDUAL USER a moderator of a single additional forum, then...
• I have to add ALL 89 FORUMS to their individual moderator privileges, PLUS the one additional forum...

Absolutely no sense whatsoever...

I personally can't believe @bfarber doubled down on the bug report that this was by design... I'm a little incredulous.

I'm also a little skeptical, to be honest - IPB 3.X worked the "right" way - were there really complaints? Was there really evidence that this should be revisited? On top of all that, the implications are that on upgrading from 3.x to 4.x, your moderator permissions will be completely out of whack (with no helpful warnings that this is the case, mind you...) if you were using a combination of group & individual moderator assignments.

Come on, IPS. You're better than this.

@Charles, @Lindy, @bfarber...I'm hoping you'll see the light.

It's one thing to have a "most restrictive rule applies" model... but this isn't that. This is a rule applied to forum X overriding a completely separate rule applied to forum Y...

[teraßyte]

Totally agree with the above, especially on big forums it can quickly become a mess if you can't assign peoples in a certain group also to other single ones.

[Colonel_mortis]

I can see benefits both ways - sometimes, albeit probably not particularly often, it might make sense to revoke a moderator permission without changing their group, which wouldn't be possible with your suggestion. It might make sense to either pre-populate the moderator perms with what they already have, or to add a checkbox for "inherit from group", which will then make it additive as you suggest.

[teraßyte]

15 hours ago, Colonel_mortis said:

I can see benefits both ways - sometimes, albeit probably not particularly often, it might make sense to revoke a moderator permission without changing their group, which wouldn't be possible with your suggestion. It might make sense to either pre-populate the moderator perms with what they already have, or to add a checkbox for "inherit from group", which will then make it additive as you suggest.

"Inherit from group (or groupS)" would certainly be a good middle ground solution 

[Luis Manson]

and this is why my "common sense" was not working

[Rheddy]

If you have 89 forums, then you're spread way too thin. Not everyone has a forum that large and there are benefits to those of us with smaller communities. The fact that you can assign a single moderator to a forum IS NOT A BUG OR A GLITCH, no matter if you think it is or not. IPS, do NOT change the way the moderator assignment feature can be set. I prefer the current setup and I suspect, a lot of other IPS customers.

[PedroNL]

+

[crabpaws]

I am having a lot of difficulty understanding the permissions hierarchy myself, and my setup is very simple.