Users are discussing the “Impersonate” feature, specifically its handling of notifications and activity tracking. brett_zink and haiku believe that impersonating a user should not affect their activity or clear notifications, as it is currently implemented. lee-dohm suggests that there are two use cases for impersonation: viewing the system as the target user and performing actions on their behalf. They propose introducing a separate “View As” mode for the former. mcwumbly notes that related topics have been discussed previously, and quotes sam from another topic, stating that tracking impersonation would be necessary to implement the desired behavior.
I don’t think any activity should be tracked when impersonating. If I click the notifications button it should not clear the notification count. If I read a new topic it should still be unread for the actual user.
Currently it seems that anything I do as an impersonated user is reflected in the activity of the actual user.
I agree, I’m not sure of the purpose of the impersonate feature. In phpBB it was for testing out permissions, so the act was non-destructive. Here it just seems.. shady.
As I understand it, there are two use cases for any feature of this type:
To me, #1 is more “view as user” than “impersonate”. Impersonate has the implication of passing oneself off as someone else to obtain abilities one wouldn’t normally have, for example “impersonating an officer”. Even impersonation in some computer credentials and security contexts is for a user or process to obtain the credentials of another user or process to perform some action.
And #2 doesn’t have to be nefarious. “I can’t figure out how to delete this message and I just want it gone, can you help me out?”
It sounds like you want an additional mode to simply View As someone else?
There a few related topics if you search for ‘impersonate’
But basically,