Private Forums

[Craig Antill]

How do private forums work ? Are they only visible to people with the necessary permissions ? or are they visible to all ?

[Badger]

You need to add a private fourm so we can see what it looks like and if we like it. :)

[James]

Hello,

Private forums can be implemented in several ways thanks to the "User Groups" feature in the control panel. A forum can be set up so that only members in the particular user group can see the forum on the home page, or the forum could be password protected or read only for everyone, apart from the users in the group who will be able to post.

In short, using a combination of user groups and forums allows administrators to set up private areas on the system in many different ways.

For more info about user groups, please check out the manual:
http://www.vbulletin.com/manual/control.html

All the best,

James

[John]

Well if we created a private forum, then it would not be much use because you would not be able to get in to it. And if we did let you it, it would not be private :-).

Private forums do appear in the listing of all forums, so as you can see, we do not have any private forums at the moment.

As for letting you have a play - we will be adding an interactive control panel demo sometime soon, so you can have a play then.

John

[Hotte]

Originally posted by James

or the forum could be password protected...

Hi
how can I setup the forum, that it is passwort protected? I can´t find a function, that this allow.
Greetings

[Cold Steel]

I need to have two private forums set up.

1) Moderators only
2) Hostees only

I have no problem setting up the moderators' forum. Problem is, some of the moderators are hostees as well. How do I give them access to BOTH forums?

Thanks,

Rich

[John]

Create a third usergroup for members who are both moderators and hostees and set up the permissions for this group.

John

[water]

is it possible to keep all postings in a forum private between the author and the administratoer?

if not, has anybody got an idea of how to hack it?

[jeb]

Originally posted by John
Create a third usergroup for members who are both moderators and hostees and set up the permissions for this group.

John

What don't you just manage the user permissions the ubb-way ? easier to admin...

with the current method, if i have 4 private forums, i must create and manage up to 16 distinct user groups !

un-usable on large scale forums...

there must be an easier way... do you plan changing it ?

thanks for any feedback,jeb.

[Edited by jeb on 05-23-2000 at 08:24 PM]

[werehere]

I dont think you have all the info yet. You can do it any way you wish to, so you could have 4 private forums and have one different group for access to all of them, you can do it by user, or you could make just about any variations in groups for access, do you see that you would not need 16 user groups to accomplish this task of yours.

This is so far above and beyond the UBB groups that theres does not compare. The need is there, but in reality the UBB does not use groups:)

[jeb]

hi werehere,

i appreciate your feedback, it just seems that you misunderstant my request...

1 - i said you can have to manage UP TO 16 user groups for 4 private forums. i know it rarely happens in reality.

2 - since you said I can arrange it like i want, why can't i assign multiple groups to a single user, instead of adding this user to multiple groups ? the difference here is subtle, and i think this is more logic in it : get a user info, and grant him acces for whatever forum... (instead of creating a user group, transfer some members to it, leave the others... this can become ANNOYING with large scale private forums)

so, it seems to become now a REQUEST :)

Mr Developper, could you please add a "multiple groups" option in the user management info like "here a the private forums : check the one to give access to this user" in the user panel... Thanks !

[Hotte]

We have 43 forums and 55 usergroups.
The forumpermissions-table has 572 entries.
This all is needed for 11 private forums and 32 public Forums.
When I create a new puclic forum, then I have to create 2 usergroups for the different permissions. Then I have to set the permissions to the new groups for the private forums so that this new groups can´t access these.

When I create a new private forum, then I have to make the steps like the public forums and I have to update the permissions of the existing groups, so that they can´t access the new private forum.

There must be a better possibility to manage the rights of the usergroups.

[James]

Just to let everyone know what we are in the process of thinking about how best to go about implementing group security... we hope to have a better solution in place in a future version.

All the best,

Jame

[werehere]

Yes I do see what you are saying, and that could be tricky I agree.

It seems as though it does work, but could be easier for large amounts of groups. Thank you for explaining for me, I do understand now:)

[Hotte]

Simply add an option to the forumproperties where I can set if this should be viewable or not.
Then I can set this to "no" and give the permission to the group(s) who should view this.

[Kenn]

I know I'm slow here, but I'm having a hard time following these directions:

From the manual: A private forum – to make a private forum, you want certain people to be able to view it and post to it. These certain people might include a selection of the standard registered members and the administrators. Firstly, I would create a new user group to contain the registered members who are able to view this forum. Add the necessary people to this group. Create the new forum and then go back into user groups area and add 'forumpermission's for the registered and unregistered groups as well as the 'awaiting moderation / email verification' groups, setting all the fields to no. This means now that only administrators and those in the selected group will be able to see this forum.


-----
I need to have 2 private forums, with some overlapping members. So I create a new user group called privategroup1. Then how do I add the users that I want into it? Is this done with Users Find edit,and switching their users group? What about moderators who have the auto generated moderator please leave group? If I add a user group are they cumulative then? What if one moderator needs to be in privategroup1 and privategroup2, and another moderator only needs privategroup2. If I change this, does it mess up their moderator status?

[Craig Antill]

Bloody hell! These 'user groups' are confusing the hell out of me! Can someone please offer some simple step by step instructions on how to make a private forum (and how to add permission for users to use them) and an announcement forum where I (and certain designated users) can post site news, but no replies are accepted.

HELP!

[Mark Hewitt]

I have a private forum which is set not to appear on the main forum page except to admins (me). But I have discovered that it is visible (even though you can't get into it) from the forum jump menu. How can I make it so people can't see it here either?

[Kenn]

Damn, I know everyone is busy, but is there anyone who understands private forums? I'd actually be willing to pay for some consulting for some one to explain what the hell the users manual is trying to say. This is way scary that a major feature of the boards is so cryptic, and that we can not get any help to implement them. Vbulletin is very fast, but damn, we need to get some of these weird features going. Anyone out there figured these out yet?

[werehere]

I have a private forum which is set not to appear on the main forum page except to admins (me). But I have discovered that it is visible (even though you can't get into it) from the forum jump menu. How can I make it so people can't see it here either?

There is not current way to do this that I am aware of, unless possibly 1.12 fixed it.

I have a private forum that is working just fine for my moderators, and I had to set it as private and invisible in the forum options, and then go to each moderator user group and do add forum permissions, and add that forum for their user group, then set whatever options you want, and those options you just set under add forum permissions are set only for the forum you just specified, which would be the private one.

Did that make sense? It really is quite easy, just a touch confusing for the first time, and hard for me to explain the steps.:)

[bira]

display=0 does the trick.