How to easily remove User from Registered Users group?

Forceflow · Post by **Forceflow** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 5:36 pm

Hi,

how can I easily remove a user from the Registered users group? I know I can go to ACP -> Users and Groups -> Manage Groups and then select the member in question and remove him. However since there is no way to filter the list and I have nearly 6000 users that's kind of hard to do.

This is the issue, I have a bunch of accounts that I suspect are SPAM accounts but they haven't done anything specific yet. It's just a behavior that I've seen that makes me suspect they are in fact SPAM accounts. As such I moved them into a special group that means that they cannot post without an mod approval anymore. Unfortunately since they are still in the Registered Users group it seems that permission set isn't loaded. At least when I use the Permission mask for one particular user it still shows that the user can post without approval but the group I placed him in shows as not having permission to post without approval.

Once I finally found that user and removed them from the Registered Users group the permission mask correctly shows as them not being able to post without approval. Doing this for all suspected SPAM accounts would be a huge amount of work so I was wondering if I am simply missing something. I am running 3.3.10.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, but please note that I do NOT want to limit new users generally. Newly registered users should be able to post. It's just the ones I suspect might be SPAM accounts that I want to limit.

Post by **KevC** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 5:50 pm

You should not be removing anyone from the registered users group. That is the base set of permissions that everyone's access is based on. If you want to limit someones abilities, you add them to another group as well with NEVER permissions on those actions.

Make a group with 'on moderation queue' permissions and add them to that group as well.

Post by **Brf** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 5:57 pm

Yes. You should leave them in the Registered Users usergroup, but it is quite easy to maintain a user's groups.
You should start with the user, not the group.
From the user's profile page, click the [Administer User] link. Then select Groups from the upper-right "Select form" dropdown.

Forceflow · Post by **Forceflow** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:28 pm

KevC wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 5:50 pm You should not be removing anyone from the registered users group. That is the base set of permissions that everyone's access is based on. If you want to limit someones abilities, you add them to another group as well with NEVER permissions on those actions.

Make a group with 'on moderation queue' permissions and add them to that group as well.

I tried that but it didn't work. The registered users can post without approval and the new group cannot post without approval. Yet that permission only appears to work once I remove said user from the registered users group...

Forceflow · Post by **Forceflow** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:29 pm

Brf wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 5:57 pm Yes. You should leave them in the Registered Users usergroup, but it is quite easy to maintain a user's groups.
You should start with the user, not the group.
From the user's profile page, click the [Administer User] link. Then select Groups from the upper-right "Select form" dropdown.

Thank you, man I feel stupid now. I didn't even know that was there

That helps a lot!

Post by **Brf** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:32 pm

Forceflow wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:28 pm The registered users can post without approval and the new group cannot post without approval.

In permissions, there is a difference between "No" and "Never". If you give "Never" permission to the new group, it overrides the Yes from the Registered Users group.

Post by **KevC** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:33 pm

Forceflow wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:28 pm Yet that permission only appears to work once I remove said user from the registered users group...

Because you've probably set the extra group 'can post without approval' to NO instead of NEVER.

The YES permission from the RU group is overriding the NO from the new group. But if it was on NEVER that would not happen.

You can always post a screenshot of the mask trace to show us and we can tell you why it's not working.

Forceflow · Post by **Forceflow** » Sat Apr 01, 2023 10:52 am

KevC wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:33 pm
Forceflow wrote: ↑Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:28 pm Yet that permission only appears to work once I remove said user from the registered users group...
Because you've probably set the extra group 'can post without approval' to NO instead of NEVER.

The YES permission from the RU group is overriding the NO from the new group. But if it was on NEVER that would not happen.

You can always post a screenshot of the mask trace to show us and we can tell you why it's not working.

Ah crap, okay yeah that's it most likely. Is there an easy way to set this to all forums where one has the ability to post? I have quite some subforums and having to go through each one and setting that permission to that group is a bit inconvenient.