Permissions for a dispute resolution category

Product Support

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around setting up a “dispute resolution” category with specific permissions. The desired setup includes:

  • Anyone (TL1) can create a topic, but it requires moderator approval
  • Senior members (TL3) can reply without approval
  • The counter-party can be manually approved to reply, regardless of trust level (TL)

However, current settings don’t allow for separate create and reply permissions, and moderators can’t approve individual users to reply on a specific thread.

@pfaffman suggested using personal messages to a group, but this wouldn’t allow all users to see the discussion. Another possible solution is to submit topics to an approval queue and move them to a category where TL3 users can reply, but this also has limitations.

@John_Lehmann concluded that the best implementation would be to set permissions at TL1 and require moderator approval for all topics and posts, with a template clearly specifying the rules. An extension to the “post require moderation” feature, conditioning it on TL, could improve this setup.

1

We are planning a “dispute resolution” category, where two parties dispute an event. We’d want to configure it as follows:

  1. Create (anyone can initiate the dispute) – but moderator approved
  2. Reply (senior members can chime in, TL3) – no approval require
  3. Reply (the counter-party can be manually approved to reply on this thread regardless of TL)

I see two problems with this.

  1. I want Create to be TL1 but Reply to be TL3. AFAIK the create permission is only available in conjunction with Reply/See, which means it must be the most restrictive.
  2. I don’t know if there’s any way for moderators to allow an individual to reply on that particular thread (because they are involved, not because of TL).

It seems like we could fix both problems if we were able to allow TL3 replies with no moderator approval, but require approval for less than that. But ideally, it would be Create/TL1, Reply TL3 + certain approved individuals.

Is there a way to set this up with built in settings or plugins? Partial solutions welcome too.

2

If you need topic level permissions then personal messages to a group are the solution.

3

@pfaffman thank you, this sounds potentially useful, and I tried reading some other threads.

Would this allow for the personal messages to be Seen by all? That is the requirement here – that only a few can discuss, but everyone can See.

The other problem is it sounds like this requires defining one group per topic which doesn’t seem feasible.

4

This won’t allow everyone to see.

You could have these submitted to an approval queue and moved to a category where the tl3 prior could reply, but the original poster wouldn’t be able to add new comments.

5

Hmm… Unfortunately I don’t think this will meet our needs.

I think the best implementation with what is currently supported would be simply to set the perms at TL1 and require mod approval for ALL topics and posts. Would need to make sure that a template could clearly specify when they try to reply that only directly involved parties’ posts will be accepted. Then the moderator could prevent 3rd unwanted third parties from chiming in, but that’s a higher burden of moderation.

This could be somewhat improved with an extension to the “post require moderation” feature, which conditioned it on TL. So only < TL3 and below would require approval.