Here's a suggestion for the perfect MOD. No Joke.

[Joe_Joe]

Here's a suggestion for the perfect MOD.

One that you install and set all the permission in one place rather than the bad joke that passes for setting it now.

No layers. No multiple screens. No trying to figure out where you are and if you just handed your site to the hackers because you're not sure where and what to set, or what it's going to do.

The Perfect MOD for phpBB 3.x.x

No joke.
JJ

[triadruid]

It's not an actionable suggestion, though. "Make this better" isn't exactly useful. How do you want it changed, specifically? How will you preserve the granularity of groups, forums, etc? What is your actual goal - totally flat site permissions? Your first troll will wreak havoc...

[Joe_Joe]

It's not an actionable suggestion, though. "Make this better" isn't exactly useful. How do you want it changed, specifically? How will you preserve the granularity of groups, forums, etc? What is your actual goal - totally flat site permissions? Your first troll will wreak havoc...

No doubt you are correct.

Your first troll will wreak havoc...

But no more so than a board that is improperly set up. My comment and suggestion is pure frustration over trying to set permission on 6, 7, 8 different pages only to find that one overrides the other and there is NO place to find out how to set it properly because everything starts with "You can" rather than "here's how"

"here's how" only applies if you can find out "How" and one or two lines are not instructions. First "go here" would help.

A MOD that took you through the steps to set security would have no impact on security. It would however keep us fringe users from pulling our hair out.

An explanation of what to do and where to do it to achieve security, not why would make more sense.

I hold the people that code this software in the highest, now if someone could write an equal entry level click for click how to it would be worth gold.

Thank you for reading this, sorry about the rant.

JJ

[triadruid]

Trust me, after trying to set up my own permissions, I FEEL your pain. The interlocking Yes/No/Never stuff, plus groups and forums, nevermind the admin/moderator/user roles...

While it might be more fruitful to discuss in a different forum, I can at least tell you some stuff that should make it easier (if somebody else doesn't get to it first).

First and biggest thing is understanding Yes/No/Never. Yes overrides No (so if a user is in two groups and one says they can and the other says they can't, they can), but Never overrides Yes.

I made 'use cases' for my moderators, and then turned those into new Forum Roles. Then even if I have 17 forums of similar type, all Users/Moderators in those forums can get the same 'role' and the same permissions. Write it once, use it forever.

More later probably, after I get to my morning meeting, and hopefully hear from you more specifics about what's confusing you.

[Joe_Joe]

Trust me, after trying to set up my own permissions, I FEEL your pain. The interlocking Yes/No/Never stuff, plus groups and forums, nevermind the admin/moderator/user roles...

While it might be more fruitful to discuss in a different forum, I can at least tell you some stuff that should make it easier (if somebody else doesn't get to it first).

First and biggest thing is understanding Yes/No/Never. Yes overrides No (so if a user is in two groups and one says they can and the other says they can't, they can), but Never overrides Yes.

I made 'use cases' for my moderators, and then turned those into new Forum Roles. Then even if I have 17 forums of similar type, all Users/Moderators in those forums can get the same 'role' and the same permissions. Write it once, use it forever.

More later probably, after I get to my morning meeting, and hopefully hear from you more specifics about what's confusing you.

All of the above. Roles?

The perfect MOD would be a page with check-blocks Yes/No. No less secure than this mess.

All my Registered members have the same access. All are in a Group called "Registered Members"

Guest. No access at all.
Bots. No access at all.
Mods, Admin. Full access. <-- same folks. should they be in both, Admin, and Registered Members Group?

One forum of 19 allows upload of zip files. 15 of the 19 allow picture uploads. No Zip.

Now what about this "roles" What? where? how should it be set, and how do I use it?


If this post is in the wrong place please by all means ask to have it moved. I'm not the only one that has no idea why this permission thing is taken to this extreme. If it's for security lets remember that it only takes 4 minutes to compremise the best if that. Spreading the permission all over the ACP isn't going to change that.

Sorry, I did it again. Thank you for your time.
JJ

[Oyabun1]

It’s not completely clear whether you need a MOD or just a better understanding of the current permissions system.

Have a look at this Knowledge Base article, phpBB3 Permissions.

If you still want to request a mod it will at least give you a better understanding of the current system and maybe you can then better set out how you want it changed.

At the moment you seem to be suggesting that all the permission options for a member should be shown on one page with checkboxes that you could then select for each permission. I don’t know how it could be done. In the main board I administer there 42 options in the Permissions area (a couple of MODS have added a few additional permission options, but the standard must still be over 30). Fitting those all on one page would be difficult, not to mention the additional permissions relating to attachments, signatures, and avatars.

Disregarding the difficulty of fitting all that on one page, your proposed system only seems to allow for setting permissions on an individual basis, so if you want to add or withdraw a permission for a group of members you have to make the change individually to each member rather than just once to the group they are in.

[triadruid]

Guest. No access at all.
Bots. No access at all.

That all looks straightforward. Just modify the Guest/Bots Roles to remove all permissions, if that's what you want.

Mods, Admin. Full access. <-- same folks. should they be in both, Admin, and Registered Members Group?

Yeah, it's my understanding that you should never remove anybody from Registered Users (the default, original group, assuming that's the one you mean).

One forum of 19 allows upload of zip files. 15 of the 19 allow picture uploads. No Zip.

Forum of 19 what? Users? Subforums? That'll change my answer, but this should be feasible and fairly painless.

Now what about this "roles" What? where? how should it be set, and how do I use it?

Roles are under the ACP, Permissions, Permission Roles in the left sidebar. Some of the answers here will depend on if you have any 'special' forums with different rules than your main forums (see question above).

::edit:: It may help to think of the interlocking parts this way: What do I want a User/Mod/Admin in This Forum to be able to do? Does it matter if they are/are not a member of That Group? Are there Other Groups which should NEVER be able to do X in This Forum? Then write (or change) a Role for that type, and assign that role to that forum, for that group if necessary. Repeat and test!

It can't really be simplified much without losing detail, though I do wish they'd put all the permissions for a particular role/user level in a single long webpage, rather than tabs.

[Joe_Joe]

Guest. No access at all.
Bots. No access at all.

That all looks straightforward. Just modify the Guest/Bots Roles to remove all permissions, if that's what you want.

Mods, Admin. Full access. <-- same folks. should they be in both, Admin, and Registered Members Group?

Yeah, it's my understanding that you should never remove anybody from Registered Users (the default, original group, assuming that's the one you mean).

One forum of 19 allows upload of zip files. 15 of the 19 allow picture uploads. No Zip.

Forum of 19 what? Users? Subforums? That'll change my answer, but this should be feasible and fairly painless.

Now what about this "roles" What? where? how should it be set, and how do I use it?

Roles are under the ACP, Permissions, Permission Roles in the left sidebar. Some of the answers here will depend on if you have any 'special' forums with different rules than your main forums (see question above).

::edit:: It may help to think of the interlocking parts this way: What do I want a User/Mod/Admin in This Forum to be able to do? Does it matter if they are/are not a member of That Group? Are there Other Groups which should NEVER be able to do X in This Forum? Then write (or change) a Role for that type, and assign that role to that forum, for that group if necessary. Repeat and test!

It can't really be simplified much without losing detail, though I do wish they'd put all the permissions for a particular role/user level in a single long webpage, rather than tabs.

Thank you for your help.

My problem is not setting what a member can do or the function of a forum. It's finding all the places that require setting. As I read it one overrides an other, that's just stupid.

Thank you, your help has been tremendous even if I don't understand most of it.

A MOD like STK with a place to accomplish setting this properly would be a god send.

Even a block map of each of the settings would help. I printed the setup instructions, they are written by and for those that already know what to do.

Be well and thank you.

JJ