"Regular mode" for admins and moderators (e.g. something like "sudo")

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

@sam

I wonder if we have this inverted. Maybe by default admins are just like any other user

Yes, I much prefer this.

It may take some untangling things to get there, given all the history, but this makes a lot more sense to me.

@sam

except that they have a special page where they click a button to get temporary admi

I think it could be a toggle in the header. Something you can easily access anywhere.

When on, the state could be clear. We might borrow some ideas from the impersonation UX (and improve them both where needed)

@Lilly

it would be great to have an admin setting for it. personally, i would prefer to have admin all the time then having to hit a button over and over

I think we might want to treat some things differently.

For example, I don’t think we want to make admins toggle into admin mode to get to /admin.

Where we already have completely separate spaces for admin stuff, I think we continue to let people go there.

But for things where admins are playing in the same space as normal users, I think more explicit signaling would be helpful.

[Moin]

@mcwumbly

But for things where admins are playing in the same space as normal users, I think more explicit signaling would be helpful.

So kind of a per admin toggle for suppress_secured_categories_from_admin with maybe a few more features like hiding PMs also in the user activity?

The description about it only adding friction seems similar

@david

Admins can still access anything. It’s just a bit of extra friction to mitigate with the ‘accidental’ cases you described.

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

@Moin

So kind of a per admin toggle for suppress_secured_categories_from_admin with maybe a few more features like hiding PMs also in the user activity?

Yeah, that’s a good example of the kind of thing we might do.

I’m also pretty confident we can design this in a way that lets people who are used to their current workflows continue to operate as they are (whether with a site setting, or making the toggle persist, etc).