How should we configure our trust levels?

[Drew_Warwick (Drew)]

As mentioned here, we use a non-standard roleset for our forum. We’re looking to further expand it so we have:

• Role0: Can like, vote on polls, and view public categories (stricter than TL0)
  • everyone
• Role1: Has access to view more categories, can post on some, and has new user restrictions applied (TL0-like)
  • manual approval
• Role2: has access to view more categories, post on more, can PM, and no new user restrictions (TL1-like)
  • manual approval
• Role3: has access to view all categories except staff, and post on all of them (TL2-like)
  • manual approval
• Role4: has access to edit posts/titles, move/unlist them, etc (TL4-like)

This has forced us to set up rolesets as:
TL0 - Role0 (desired: TL0)
TL1 - Role1 (desired: TL0)
TL2 - Role 2 (desired: TL1)
TL3 - Role 3 (desired: TL2)
TL4 - Role 4 (desired: TL4)

with this being problematic because:

• Role1 does not get TL0 restrictions since it is TL1 instead of TL0
• Role3 gets edit permissions even though it should only have up to TL2 permissions

If we disable “trusted users can edit others”, Role3 loses the ability to edit others (good), but so does TL4 (bad). As for roles 0/1, if we bump Role1 down to TL0, there’s nowhere for us to put Role0. We want anyone to be able to sign up and use Role0 without us having to invite them manually.

Is there any way we can use groups to resolve this, or do we have to write plugins to improve settings so that we can control which trust levels they apply to?

[robmc (Robert McIntosh)]

You should be able to achieve this with Groups rather than hacking the Trust Levels.

If you convert your Roles to Groups you can achieve this by configuring the security settings in the categories to match the requirements.

You would create a new category, then remove the right for Everyone to Create/Reply/See and add in specific rules such as Group:Role1 can See, Group:Role2 can Reply/See, Group:Role3 can Create/Reply/See, etc.

In this way Role 1 members, irrespective of their Trust Level, can have their ability to create posts, or even to reply, limited on a category basis.

This will require more set-up when you create the categories, and the manual process to upgrade members from Role 1 to Role 2, however, if this is what you wanted to do, then it can certainly be achieved.

You will not be able to give them editing and moderating rights this way, you will have to rely on Trust Level settings for this, and you may need to work out the manual or other process of coordinating this, but it is not impossible to do if this is important to you.

Good luck!