Revoke Permissions

[Gesundheit]

Hello,

Quite simply - there needs to be a feature that enables the revoking of any permission previously given to a user via a user group they're in without removing them from that user group. I.e. if a user belongs to a general user group that enables the usage of signatures, I'd need the ability to either revoke that permission directly from their profile or create a user group that takes priority over existing user groups they're in.

[Gesundheit]

I'm surprised there's no support for this. It's a rather useful feature to e.g. punish users who have been abusing a privilege that's otherwise available since registration.

[Xenboy]

Are you asking to be able to revoke only some of the features that being in the group or revoke everything in that group?

Either way it seems pretty simple to me, but perhaps I'm missing something. It doesn't sound like the user needs to remain in the original group. What's the point of that? What benefits do you or anyone else get in keeping them in a group without the permissions or features that group permits?

Remove the user from the group in question. That would remove their ability to access any of the special features or areas that the group permits.

Alternately, create a new group with reduced permissions and name it so that it's clear the user is "in the doghouse." If they redeem themselves, you can move them back into the original group and their original access is restored.

If I'm missing something, please explain your desire a bit more.

[Gesundheit]

Well.. I'm specifically talking about primary groups e.g. "Members". If I'd move them to a copy of the "Members" group minus the x permission, then there would be 2 different groups of the same name under user search and people would quickly figure out who the segregated users are. I don't want that to happen. If I'd prevent the secondary "Members" group from being searched, then that would have the same undesired effect. 

Even free forum software somehow find this option to be an obvious necessity.

[Xenboy]

So you want to punish someone without anyone else knowing? If you don't want them to be able to do anything for some period you can simply disable their account from logging in for whatever period of time you specify. Nothing looks to be amiss to anyone else but the user isn't going to be able to do anything on the forum for as long as you've specified. They can still visit your community, but they just can't log in.

As for free software that allows for this, I just checked phpBB and MyBB, two fairly popular free forums and I can't find a way to do what you are asking. You can change a person's group, but I couldn't figure out how to leave someone in a group and disable them from actually doing anything (short of doing what I mentioned above).

Do you have an example of forum software that works out of the box the way you suggest?

[opentype]

It’s kind of the point that whatever is set in the member group is what is used. There is already the hassle of how primary groups and secondary groups act together even though they have conflicting settings so the speak. You want to introduce another layer of problems when you want user-level exceptions for this. I think that is a bad idea. It would only cause more confusion. 

You are the admin. If users break your rules, e.g. regarding the signature, you don’t need a functionality just to prevent things to go wrong with that. You can just talk to the user and apply “punishment” in other ways. 

[MMXII]

I guess the idea behind this is to add a third permission in the usergroup settings: Yes, No, Never. When "never" is selected in a usergroup that a member is part of, this overwrites all other permissions.

If I am not mistaken, this is how some competitors handle permissions in their usergroup settings, and I have to say that I like this a lot. It makes it so much easier to handle permissions because then you can mostly work with secondary usergroups and do not have to worry about the question, whether or not a member is (or is not) part of another usergroup that gives (or gives not) extra permissions.

[Gesundheit]

4 hours ago, MMXII said:

I guess the idea behind this is to add a third permission in the usergroup settings: Yes, No, Never. When "never" is selected in a usergroup that a member is part of, this overwrites all other permissions.

Exactly. This guy gets it.

 

4 hours ago, opentype said:

You are the admin. If users break your rules, e.g. regarding the signature, you don’t need a functionality just to prevent things to go wrong with that. You can just talk to the user and apply “punishment” in other ways. 

 

6 hours ago, Xenboy said:

If you don't want them to be able to do anything for some period you can simply disable their account from logging in for whatever period of time you specify. Nothing looks to be amiss to anyone else but the user isn't going to be able to do anything on the forum for as long as you've specified. They can still visit your community, but they just can't log in.

Well, quite frankly, I don't need any alternative tips on how to handle a specific situation. I'm well aware that I could do things differently.

 

6 hours ago, Xenboy said:

As for free software that allows for this, I just checked phpBB and MyBB, two fairly popular free forums and I can't find a way to do what you are asking. You can change a person's group, but I couldn't figure out how to leave someone in a group and disable them from actually doing anything (short of doing what I mentioned above).

Do you have an example of forum software that works out of the box the way you suggest?

As previously mentioned: phpBB has an option to set a permission to NEVER. This effectively overwrites any previous grants of said permission.

[opentype]

45 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

Well, quite frankly, I don't need any alternative tips on how to handle a specific situation.

Okay. I will remember that for your upcoming requests.