SKIP THIS AND SCROLL DOWN TO DowMod 0.0.2 ! MOD Title: phpBB2 Dow-mod
MOD Description: Authentic posts & profiles. Fast-View. Avatar Gallery Preview.
MOD Version: phpBB 2.0.18 Dow-mod 0.0.0
MOD Download: Choose a download host
- Download Dow-mod from bestsharing.com
- Download Dow-mod from filefactory.com
- Download Dow-mod from fasterupload.com
Demo Username: phpbb
Demo Password: php
(Sorry that's only a user registration, not an administrator or a moderator, so if you want to try out the administrator and moderator additional features for yourself, you'll have to download the MOD files and install it yourself somewhere.)
Modifications and features list
This is taken from my FAQ page, from where more details can be found.
What are the software modifications which have been made by Peter Dow?
SKIP THIS AND SCROLL DOWN TO DowMod 0.0.2 ! Modifications to the original subSilver template and the generic phpBB2 code as downloaded as phpBB 2.0.18 have been made in order to achieve the following ends:
- To display a customized logo for the For Freedom Forums. A new board configuration option allows an administrator to name different logo image files.
- To suppress an unwelcome new window at one point when logging in.
- To remove the user option to upload an avatar from a url, which didn't work anyway.
- To enable the board's avatar gallery to be previewed without registering or logging in.
- To moderate the disabling/enabling of HTML in user posts. HTML is always disabled in user posts and can only be enabled if a moderator quotes the user's post and posts the reply with the option to disable-HTML unchecked. HTML is always disabled in signatures, except for administrator signatures.
- Features have been added to make it much more obvious to the casual forum surfer which usernames have which level - either a user-level username or an administrator-level username. So the Memberlist now identifies Administrator or User in the modified Joined/Level column.
- When viewing topics, under the username in the author column, the poster's forum user level is identified as either Administrator, Moderator, Registered User or Guest User. If no rank title has been awarded, a default user level capital letter appears in place of the rank image -
A for Administrator, M for Moderator, R for Registered User or G for Guest user. - The ranks are more clearly identified in the Viewing profile page with a new Rank heading above the avatar and a row for the user's rank, rank title and rank image, or the words Registered User if none.
- Editing privileges have been strictly curtailed so that only the original poster can ever edit his or her own post. Moderators and the administrator can delete but not edit other users' posts. See 'Why is it an advantage to a forum and its users to prevent an administrator or moderators editing any other users' posts?'
- Moderators have been stopped from moving or splitting topics into other forums that they aren't also moderators of.
- Moderators have been stopped from editing polls after voting has started.
- Registered users can delete their own registered username from the Profile. (Administrators can't self-delete).
- When deleting other usernames, in place of the simple checkbox to delete, administrators are presented with a thought-provoking list of dummy selections helpfully suggesting alternatives to the summary deletion of a naughty user's username registration - suggesting, for example, 'Give user a warning?', 'Debate deleting this user?', 'Put it to a vote?' and so on. A DELETE USER option is offered, of course, so there is no real functional difference there, merely that this feature is a cosmetic modification which fits in with the ethos of this software promoting the highest of administration and moderation standards.
- Administrators can search for usernames more easily.
- 'Show Page display times table' is a new board configuration option (Administration Panel - General Admin - Configuration - User and Forum Basic Settings).
A table giving the time the server has taken to display each page can be shown at the foot of user pages. The page display times can be of use to administrators, webmasters and server managers to measure how well the server is performing and a detailed breakdown of computer time on each part of the page is of some use to software modifiers too. - Page display times have been improved in the all-important View topic pages by extending the database to allow for fast display of previously processed posts and signatures which usually remain unchanged between viewings.
The additional database columns are automatically added or detected when this software restores or imports any board's database. Therefore although the size of the database in use will increase, this should not introduce an issue of database incompatibility. - Data transport made easy. Administrators can now easily import the database of other phpBB2 boards to a board running this software modification, using this board's Restore Database function which comes with a new keep same option designed to ensure that imported data works with the minimum of fuss and worry. See 'How does the modified software's new Database Restore keep-same option ease data import from boards running on different systems?'
- User Profile Information moderation The philosophy of moderation of possibly objectionable user posts by means other than moderators directly (and possibly anonymously) editing the user's own posts has been extended to the moderation and authentication of user profiles and signatures.
- Software modifications have been introduced which allow administrators to perform the board-wide function of user profile and signature moderation with ease and in a measured and proportionate way.
- The Viewing Profile pages now show the profiled user's signature (as it appears in posts) if the board is configured to allow signatures. Also, any groups the profiled user is a member of are listed, as are any forums which the profiled user is a moderator of.
- Administrators can, for each user, decide whether to allow the public display of the user's current profile and signature.
In disallowed cases, the user's signature is replaced in posts by a suitable - 'No authenticated signature' message and public requests to view disallowed profiles are served with just a 'This profile is not publicly viewable unless and until it is approved by a board administrator.' Administrators and the user whose profile it is can still view the disallowed profile which now has the 'not publicly viewable' message attached.
Thus users can be availed of the opportunity to edit a disallowed profile and signature and administrators can be availed of an opportunity to preview a new profile and signature and review the decision to disallow the user's profile and signature. - Respect for the integrity of a user's profile and signature is enhanced by disallowing administrators from editing user profile information and only the admin-only options are actionable by administrators via the Administration Panel - User Admin - Management page. The administrator sees the user profile data there in grey indicating disabled inputs.
- A new Makeover auto-hide feature has been introduced to the board configuration options. If activated the board will automatically hide some users' profiles when they are edited. Those hidden profiles can only be made publicly viewable again by administrator action. Administrators can therefore decide to pre-post moderate some user profiles and signatures.
- An administrator can select which users are subject to Makeover auto-hide and which are not by a new admin-only option on the Administration Panel - User Admin - Management page - User is authentic. If set to Yes, the user's profile is not automatically hidden after an edit. If set to No the user's profile edits are subject to Makeover auto-hide, if activated.
- If an administrator disables the display of a user's avatar image (perhaps because the choice of image is deemed inappropriate) the user is still able to choose another image, although it remains hidden from public view.
Subsequently, an administrator is able to preview the user's new image choice for a review of the decision to disable user avatar display. - 'Users browsing this forum' is displayed on the View Topic page as well as View Forum and the list of users is always updated when a page is displayed - the 60 second update-prohibition has been removed.
- The special colour for moderator usernames doesn't appear on the index page - but just on the forum pages.
SKIP THIS AND SCROLL DOWN TO DowMod 0.0.2 ! I wrote:Supplement to the feature list
Why is it an advantage to a forum and its users to prevent an administrator or moderators editing any other users' posts?
With Dow-mod, administrators and moderators are prevented from directly editing other users' posts. A moderator can only effect a moderate-edit procedure by posting a reply with a quote of the user's post and editing the quote within the moderator's own reply post. The moderator can then delete the user's original post to enforce moderation of users' posts .
So moderation is still quite easy - it is simply that the moderator must now take responsibility for the edit which must appear posted under the moderator's username.
This is to try to guarantee that moderators will never bring a user's reputation into question by falsifying a user's post. A user's post should be seen to be his or her castle, so to speak - maybe sometimes a castle in enemy territory when the forum moderator isn't friendly to the user.
Experienced forum users have experienced occasions on some forums when, annoyingly, a moderator edits the user's post but doesn't take responsibility for that edit. A moderator by deleting a user's post can always flatten any user's castle to the ground within the moderator's forum - that is an honest and obvious disagreement - but here the moderator is not able to fly a false flag from the user's castle that misrepresents the user's views.
With this software modification, users gain reputation protection and administrators and moderators can't abuse their position of responsibility in that way, nor will they have to deal with suspicions or accusations that they have edited someone else's post.
So the overall integrity of the board forums is enhanced.
How does the modified software's new Database Restore keep-same option ease data import from boards running on different systems?
This board's Restore Database administrator's function offers two options for determining your board's configuration after the restore. When restoring an imported database from a board running on another system, it is required to keep the same server name and script path that your board is configured to operate with - rather than risk adopting the file's data item specifying server name and script path.
If you are never importing data files from boards running on other systems then it doesn't matter which option you select - both amount to the same thing.
However, importing files backed up from boards running on other systems can easily and quite casually be done with this software modification by selecting the keep same option.
The original phpBB2 unmodified software requires that the data file to be imported must first be manually edited to change the server name and script path data items to suit the destination board's system. Failure to do so will cause original phpBB2 boards to link erroneously to the system which backed up the data!
Here the keep same option guarantees that this board will not read in an inappropriate server name and script path which an administrator (you?) importing a data file may inadvertently have neglected to pre-edit to suit.
Now administrators can import data with the keep same option without worrying about the board crashing, down time and the effort required to get your board up and running again.
Limitation
- MySQL databases only - for this version anyway.
- The demo board is running on a free hosting service which unfortunately-
- limits the emails to one per minute
- limits the CPU time in one go, so I can't restore big databases - above maybe 500KB. So I've had to hack the database to restore it.
)
Any questions, or if you get stuck, post here or on the