To help combat spam, many users opt to have new user’s posts moderated until they’ve made a specific number of posts. This allows the Admin/Moderator team to keep potentially malicious posts out of the public eye until a user has effectively passed a ‘probationary period’ as a member of the site.
For this example, we will use the following criteria:
- Moderated Usergroup: Registered Users
- ‘Full Member’ Usergroup: Approved Members
- Number of Posts to Moderate: 10
As all new users go into the Registered Users usergroup by default, simply adjust the permissions for this group to ensure these have all posts and threads moderated. Then, you need to setup the usergroup for your non-Moderated users and adjust the permissions for this usergroup accordingly. To do this, create a new usergroup based off the Registered Users usergroup and set the permissions so that their posts and threads are NOT moderated.
For more information on usergroups and permissions, please see this section of the manual relating to these.
Once you have your usergroups setup to your needs, you should create the appropriate Promotion. Using the criteria above, your Promotions screen should look like this:
<<<Screenshot of Promotions screen with the following criteria>>>
Explanation:
- Usergroup
This is the usergroup that the users are currently a member of, i.e. Registered Users. The Promotion will only apply to these users. - Posts
These are the number of posts that a user should have made before they can be promoted, in this case 10. - Promotion Strategy
As this example will have a user promoted after 10 posts have been made, this should be set to ‘Posts’ - Promotion Type
Set this option to ‘Primary Usergroup’. When the Promotions Scheduled Task runs, the user will then have their Primary Usergroup changed. - Move User to Usergroup
This should be set to the new (non-Moderated) usergroup that was setup earlier, i.e. ‘Approved Members’
Now complete, this Promotion will move active users from the ‘Registered Users’ usergroup to the ‘Approved Members’ usergroup once they have made 10 approved posts in your forum.