board77

I've been working with groups a little, and the more I do it, the more I see how this could save us enormous amounts of work in future.

So far I've created an All_Members group with all full members, a Jury Room group, and an RP ID group.

Groups let you set permissions for an entire group at once, and change a user's permissions by just adding them to or deleting them from the group.

Until now all permissions have been set for each member individually, which means clicking through eight or ten boxes for viewing, reading, writing, editing, deleting. . . for each of our subforums.

I've discovered that any granted permission overrides any permission not granted--if someone has individual permission to read a forum, the fact that a group they're part of does not doesn't affect their ability to read the forum.

So, when someone needs access to the Jury Room, we add them to the Jury Room group, and the permissions granted there override their individual lack of permission. When they're done, we remove them from that group, and their permissions are automatically gone.

RP IDs are added to the RP ID group instead of All_Members, and this gives them permissions just for There and Back Again.

I would like to propose two changes to how we have been doing things:

• 1. Grant all permissions through groups. This would eliminate errors and discrepancies I've seen in the individual permissions. It would mean, though, that admins would have to click through everyone one last time, turning off all their permissions (except for special cases I'll note next). We would turn on all the standard permissions in the All_Members group first, so there would be no "outages" for members.
  
  2. Add three new groups. These should not be visible on the front page, I think.
  
  One would be Special Permissions. This would be for any special cases such as members restricted from a forum by a jury verdict, or Jnyusa, who has special additional access in a couple of spots to help her with her constitution work. All permissions for this group would be set to "off." A member restricted from a forum would be removed from All_Members, added to this group, and have the special set of permissions set by hand.
  
  The second would be BikeRacks. This would allow quick restriction of a member to the BikeRacks under the circumstances noted in the charter. The member would be removed from All_Members and added to this group, which has permissions only for the BikeRacks.
  
  The third would be England. Thinking of England permissions in All_Members would be off, of course. We would add all members who want to see England to this group, in addition to All_Members. Permissions for England would be "on" for this group. This would also involve admins drawiing up lists of who already has access to England and adding them to this group.

I think one last bout of tedious permission-clicking would make managing permissions simple for all future admins.

Opinions? Suggestions?

My opinion is that you probably don't even need to ask people's opinion.

Its a great idea. I can't see any possible objections.

Looks really great Prim and I hope that through this process a lot of setting permission work can be made a lot easier.

The way you've set out sounds pretty good. There is only one instance I could think of if I understood you right and a member can only belong to one group at a time. If members can belong to several groups at once then what I'm about to say is null and void.

Take the (highly unsual but possible) instance where a member does not want to see the England forum, and take another member that does. Now, if both of those through serendipity (is that the right word?) find themselves in a Jury and belonging to the Jury group, well....

If my case is valid, then perhaps you need to add e.g.

Jury group 1 = access everywhere + Jury room
Jury group 2 = access everywehre + England + Jury room

(this might be relevant even for members of the current pannel discussion)

The way you're proposing a group 'Special Permissions' and then set those manually is a wonderful idea btw and very adabtable
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Resident witchâ„¢ , presenting Paul Klee, Blaue Nacht

Alandriel, you can be a member of multiple groups. Only the permissions set to "on" in each group affect anything. A user's permissions are the sum of all the "ons" from all the groups he/she is a member of.

So England (and every other forum) is "off" for the Jury Room group, because only the "ons" for the Jury Room affect anything.

Elegant, Prim.

Jn

I had a hunch my input would be useless

Fabulous stuff Prim!!!
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Resident witchâ„¢ , presenting Paul Klee, Blaue Nacht

Sounds good to me. And I like the idea of being able to instantly limit someone to the bikeracks only - the person could no longer disrupt the entire board, but on the other hand, would not be silenced completely. It would not be as traumatic as a ban, but would allow for the posting to continue, in one location, yet allow others to avoid the fertilizer hitting the fan, if they so choose.

EDIT: I noticed that the Jury, RP and ALL user groups are available for perusing even if I am not logged on.

Thanks, laureanna! I'd thought about that but hadn't done anything yet.

My inclination would be to hide all groups, since they are not "user clubs" that people will be asking to join. They're just administrative conveniences. I wasn't concerned about hiding All_Members or RP IDs since the member list is available, or Jury Room because the constitution committee is public. But I realize on looking through the charter that in jury cases it might be as well not to make a public list of participants.

Would it be all right with everyone to make all our groups "hidden"?

Since, as you say Prim, usergroups are solely used for Admin purposes, making them hidden is a good suggestion I'll try and put some info about this into the FAQ. If you can think of an abt wording please let me know (otherwise I'll just try and fumble something)

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Resident witchâ„¢ , presenting Paul Klee, Blaue Nacht

Alandriel, I've made the three existing groups hidden, but I can still see them on the front page. I think this must be because I'm an admin. Could you, or anyone else who is not an admin, look at the "Usergroups" tab on the front page and see whether you can see the All_Members, Jury Room, or RP Characters user groups? Thanks.

Prim, I can't see the other groups.

Alatar

I can't see them either, Prim.

But I realize on looking through the charter that in jury cases it might be as well not to make a public list of participants.

The membership desired that these proceedings not be secret, but they are read-only public in the Jury Room. You're not talking about 'hidden' from the membership in the Jury Room, are you? Just in the user groups on the front page ...?

Jn

Prim is scary!

Very impressive, Prim!

(Only question that came to my mind: Are groups still handled by the administrator ID? And the frequent password changes for this ID are no problem?)

Jn, I'm just talking about the Jury Room usergroup listing. I didn't hide anything to do with the Jury Room itself.

I don't think the listing really needed to be hidden now, but the charter does call for members to be confined to posting in the Jury Room under some circumstances during arbitrations--which means their names would be on this list, which is readable by unregistered people. Members might not like that.

Hobby, I used the Administrator ID except for the Jury Room, but I haven't yet found anything I can't do with a group as an admin--I can add and delete people without being the group moderator, for example.

readable by unregistered people

ah! I get it now. Thanks, Prim

Thanks, everyone, for looking.

I'm going to wait for more input before doing anything else, because in just a week there will be five of us to share all the clicking. . . .

4, I think. Prim will finally be allowed to have her breakdown.

Prim, you are teh best!



Thank you.

I'm already choosing crockery to fling.

<ducks flying china>

Prim, a question if you please.

Why are your posts naked?
No avatar? No sig pics?

Is it in keeping with the *coughseriousnesscough* of your sacred position as an administrator?

Just askin'