My site will have quite a few announcements of events. I do not want to use the calendar/events feature because my users will find it just too technical and complicated.
So, I’m looking for a way to enable the topic author to easily set a topic timer for when the announcement should expire. I don’t want any other user to be able to set the timer except the author (and trust level 4 and admins).
Any idea if this is possible and how to do it?
I don’t think it’s entirely a great idea to let authors have TL4-level permissions on all of their topics because sites often use those actions for moderation purposes. However, I can think of times it might have been useful to enable this for a specific category. Maybe this could be enabled by trust level? TL3s are generally trustworthy and not a group I would worry about abusing the ability to lock their own topics..
I don’t like the fact that trust level 3s are semi-moderators. I would just prefer staying on trust level 2 than trust level 3.
i personally am not in favour of this feature simply because the topic timer has many options which i consider staff functions:
maybe if that set of options was limited to certain functions, then perhaps, but not as it is.
What do you expect to happen when the announcement “expires”? What exactly are you trying to achieve?
Most of our users are moving over from Facebook. On Facebook, people post announcements of things like yard sales or other events occurring on specific dates. Those posts appear in everyone’s feed LONG after they are irrelevant because they happened last weekend, or even last month. I’m trying to avoid people seeing posts that are past their due date, so to speak.
Of course, I would never give everyone trust level 4 just to set a topic timer. But I would like to give them the ability to set a timer on their own posts, regardless of their trust level. That way I can tell them to do that and hold them accountable for doing so.
So, I’m assuming one of the timer settings will prevent a topic from being seen as a new topic for people after the timer expires. If so, I want people to be able to set a timer on the topics they post.
Do you really mean “posts”? A timer per post within a topic will be more difficult.
Hmm. The only topic timer that would change how the topic is shown is the delete timer. I am not sure that’s the result you intend. It is kind of as if the topic never existed - for example likes on those posts no longer count and the user won’t be able to see their posts in the topic. Is that what you want? I had the impression a category with “past events” that is muted by default so it’s hidden from topic lists like /latest might be closer to what you want. But I am not sure what you mean by “seen as a new topic”. By default a topic is considered as “new” when it was posted in the past 2 days. There is a user preference where users can change that for themselves. Additionally new replies are considered to be “new” for the user when they are watching or tracking the topic.
