Whats the difference between a "channel owner" and a moderator?

[jdj]

I'm just trying to get my head around vBulletin 5. I've been told that forums don't have channel owners, only blogs and groups. But if you go to admin CP "channel management" you can add a moderator to a blog and you can add a moderator to a group, just as you can add a moderator to a forum: Although you can't see in the "channel management" section who the owner of the "channel" is as far as I can tell.

What's the difference between a "channel owner" and a moderator in vB5? And for any given "channel" that has a "channel owner" how and where do I check who that "channel owner" is?

[Wayne Luke]

A channel owner owns a Blog or Group. Ownership is created by creating the blog or group. Though it can be transferred. It will tell you who owns a group or blog when you visit the summary page for that blog or group in the front end. You should not assign people to the Channel * groups.

A moderator is assigned to manage one or more forums. A "Channel Moderator" is someone who is appointed to moderate a blog or group by the Owner.

[jdj]

Ownership is created by creating the blog or group. A "Channel Moderator" is someone who is appointed to moderate a blog or group by the Owner.

On most sites any registered user can blog; they don't have to be admins. If it's the creator of the blog that is automatically the "Owner" of the blog, or the creator of the Group that's the "Owner" of the group, how can the "Owners" appoint a moderator to moderate the blog or group if they don't have access to the Admin CP?

PS: I don't know what you mean by "...you should not assign people to the Channel*groups."

[Replicant]

I have my groups set up with channel owners (modified permissions) so they have full control over that one group that they own. This was the only way I could get the groups to work the way I wanted them to. I had to modify the channel owner permissions however, because the default settings allowed the channel owner to edit, delete and moderate any channel in the forum. This may not be the proper way of doing it, but I couldn't get the groups to work any other way.

[Wayne Luke]

On most sites any registered user can blog; they don't have to be admins. If it's the creator of the blog that is automatically the "Owner" of the blog, or the creator of the Group that's the "Owner" of the group, how can the "Owners" appoint a moderator to moderate the blog or group if they don't have access to the Admin CP?

The can do so from within the blog or group interface. They own the content, they control who moderators are. It has nothing to do with Admin users or the Admin Interface.

PS: I don't know what you mean by "...you should not assign people to the Channel*groups."

Thought it was pretty straight forward. Don't put people in these usergroups within the AdminCP.

[jdj]

Thought it was pretty straight forward. Don't put people in these usergroups within the AdminCP.

It's still not straightforward because both of your posts are ambiguous. Do you mean:

(1) Do not assign moderators to the forum channels within the admincp.
(2) Do not assign moderators to the CMS channels within the admincp.
(3) Do not assign moderators to the group channels with the admincp.
(4) Do not assign moderators to the blog channels within the admincp.

My assumption is from what you have just said that you mean you can do (1) and (2) but you should not do (3) and (4). If it's don't do (1), (2),(3) or (4), i.e. don't assign moderators to any channel it begs the obvious question, why is the facility to add moderators to channels still in the admincp.

[jdj]

the default settings allowed the channel owner to edit, delete and moderate any channel in the forum.

Is that really correct? What Wayne has said in his first reply is, "A Channel owner owns a Blog or Group. Ownership is created by creating the blog or group."

So if I've understood what Wayne has said, creating a blog or group means that the system automatically adds the creator of that blog or group to the Channel Owner Usergroup. And if what you've said is correct, as soon as they've been added to that Channel Owner usergroup any creators of blogs or groups can edit, delete and moderate any channel in the forum. Really?

[Wayne Luke]

It's still not straightforward because both of your posts are ambiguous. Do you mean:

(1) Do not assign moderators to the forum channels within the admincp.
(2) Do not assign moderators to the CMS channels within the admincp.
(3) Do not assign moderators to the group channels with the admincp.
(4) Do not assign moderators to the blog channels within the admincp.

My assumption is from what you have just said that you mean you can do (1) and (2) but you should not do (3) and (4). If it's don't do (1), (2),(3) or (4), i.e. don't assign moderators to any channel it begs the obvious question, why is the facility to add moderators to channels still in the admincp.

.You will see three usergroups named "Channel" with an additional word. Those words being Owner, Moderator and Member. Do not assign users to these three groups with the word "Channel" in their name.

These groups are completely unrelated to Moderators that an administrator would assign to Forum or CMS channels. You should not assign moderators to either Blog or Group Channels. The owners of those channels are responsible for that.

You're over thinking things and making them more complicated than you need to.

[jdj]

It's not me that's making things more complicated; now that I've got my head around the difference between Forums and Groups I can see that:

- a Group in vBulletin has one owner (unlike groups on LinkedIn or Facebook)
- a Forum in vBulletin can have several moderators; it's superior to Groups if you compare vBulletin "Groups" to LinkedIn or Facebook
- if you wanted to ditch the "Groups" feature and have a site that said"Groups" on it you could have done it just by changing the name of the channel and the NavBar from "Forums" to "Groups" and you could have done it in sitebuilder
- the only advantage a group has is that you can add a picture to it...but you can do that to a blog. If you don't add a picture to a "Group" nobody can see who the "owner" is.

In the admincp the feature exists to add moderators to Groups....although you say we shouldn't do it...but that's not in the manual..so that complexity is what has been built into vBulletin because the developers and program managers don't agree. And because they don't agree you have two features which are essentially the same, thereby adding very little value to the product....but you don't actually have a calendar...a very distinctive feature. http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum...t-it-all-wrong

[Wayne Luke]

Group functionality hasn't changed since they were added in 3.X.

[Wayne Luke]

Is that really correct? What Wayne has said in his first reply is, "A Channel owner owns a Blog or Group. Ownership is created by creating the blog or group."

So if I've understood what Wayne has said, creating a blog or group means that the system automatically adds the creator of that blog or group to the Channel Owner Usergroup. And if what you've said is correct, as soon as they've been added to that Channel Owner usergroup any creators of blogs or groups can edit, delete and moderate any channel in the forum. Really?

That isn't the case. The groups work differently than others. They only give permission to the channels that the user owns. Truth be told they shouldn't even be shown in the interface but the developers and program managers don't agree.

[jdj]

That isn't the case. The groups work differently than others. They only give permission to the channels that the user owns. Truth be told they shouldn't even be shown in the interface but the developers and program managers don't agree.

OK.....thanks for being so candid especially about "the developers and program managers don't agree". I'm just trying to understand the thing. I don't expect perfection from it but in the absence of documentation somewhere telling us how to run it all that we can do is try it out, see what works and what doesn't and ask questions.

[Replicant]

That isn't the case. The groups work differently than others. They only give permission to the channels that the user owns. Truth be told they shouldn't even be shown in the interface but the developers and program managers don't agree.

I have a clean install on a test server that I use to test scenarios before I implement on the live site. When I get a moment, I will try to document the steps I made that gave the group channel owner full moderation permissions on the whole site. If I can make it re-producible, that would be grounds for a bug submission, correct?

[Wayne Luke]

Yes.