Finer control over moderation notifications

[braymond64]

My forum site is for a standards organization. So we have various categories that correspond to standards and multiple forums within each category. I have different moderators for each category and sometimes different moderators for individual forums within a category. I spent some time setting this up in the system using groups. The idea was that people who were involved with a particular standard would moderate the forum(s) that pertain to that standard.

The issue is that the users are getting all moderation requests, not just the moderation requests in their group that has moderator privileges for their forum. When I contacted support, they said that this is just how it works... that even though they only have rights to moderate within their forum, they will see moderation requests for all of the forums.

It clutters up their email with moderation requests that don't pertain to them. I'm having to have them set up email rules to filter out the requests outside their forum(s). I would like to request finer control over which moderator requests people receive.

Thanks.

[CoffeeCake]

1 hour ago, braymond64 said:

When I contacted support, they said that this is just how it works... that even though they only have rights to moderate within their forum, they will see moderation requests for all of the forums.

What do you mean by moderation requests?

[bfarber]

Yes, can you clarify what you mean by that?

[braymond64]

Hi. Sorry for the delay. They can do general moderation activity, such as pin topics, move topics, etc. But what I'm talking specifically about here is to approve a topic or post to be visible to the public. In order to combat spam, the forums are set up so that the first post/topic has to be manually approved. So when a new user creates a post, it makes sense that the moderators set up for that specific forum are the ones who would approve the post since they would understand whether it was pertinent to their forum. That is the vetting we do to let people be able to post freely.

Does that help clarify?

Thanks,
braymond

[Morrigan]

It sounds like all moderators are getting all notifications of moderator items.

I would say start with verifying permissions but beyond that submit a ticket.

[braymond64]

That's exactly what is happening. I did submit a ticket and they said that is how it works.

[CoffeeCake]

Oh, so to see if I'm understanding correctly, let's set up a scenario that I think you're describing:

• You have various forums setup, each with distinct moderators that only have moderation permissions within those forums. We'll make things up here as illustrations:
  • Pizza Forum
  • Pancake Forum
  • Peach Cobbler Forum
• Braymond, a noted expert in established pizza circles, is a moderator only in the pizza forum, with no moderation privileges on the peach cobbler or pancake forums.
• New member, WafflesAreDelish, posts a first post as a moderated post in the Pancake forum which must be approved by a moderator.
• Braymond receives a notification to approve CrustSideOnTop's post in the pancake forum because they are a moderator somewhere, but not in the Pancake forum.
• Other moderator, Mrs. Buttersworth, is only a moderator on the pancake forum and not in the pizza forum. She won best pancake three times in the late 90s, and has published 24 books on the art of pancaking. She gets notifications when someone posts a moderated post on the pizza forum, of which she knows nothing about and has no moderation acccess to.

Is that what's happening?

If so, that's what is supposed to happen per support? That seems like a pretty solid use case that should be configurable.

[braymond64]

Very close. 🙂

WafflesAreDelish and CrustSideOnTop would be the same user. And I think Mrs. Buttersworth's part is redundant. So it can be simplified to this:

• I have various forums setup, each with distinct moderators that only have moderation permissions within those forums:
  • Pizza Forum
  • Pancake Forum
  • Peach Cobbler Forum
• Braymond, a noted expert in established pizza circles, is a moderator only in the pizza forum, with no moderation privileges on the peach cobbler or pancake forums.
• New member, WafflesAreDelish, posts a first post in the Pancake forum which must be approved by a moderator.
• Braymond receives a notification to approve WafflesAreDelish's post in the pancake forum because they are a moderator somewhere, but not in the Pancake forum.

And then consider that there are subforums also with different moderators, which doesn't change anything logically just shows the extent of the issue.

• Pizza Forum
  • Thick crust
  • Thin crust
  • Standard crust
  • Stuffed crust
• Pancake Forum
• Peach Cobbler Forum
• Etc.

Support says that is what is supposed to happen. I agree with you that it should be configurable, which is why I posted here. It's surprising to me that this isn't common.

[CoffeeCake]

Can the moderator approve the post in the forum in which they are not a moderator?