More user control

[Admin]

You can now ban people from your own threads. Click on their username in their postbit, and click "ban user from this thread".

You can also now make your threads private. Go to the thread controls menu at the top of the thread, and expand it. You should see the option to "whitelist thread" underneath "delete thread". Anyone not whitelisted will see an error message when they try to view the thread.

To come:
Our elves are hard at work trying to make it so that whitelisted threads don't show up on forumview to anyone who can't view them, because it is really annoying to see them and try to go into them. It would be nice to have banned users not see threads they are banned from either.

Also we want to make it so that you can save a list of users to be automatically banned from your threads when you create them, or automatically permitted into your whitelisted threads. That will be a while. For now copy-and-paste will have to do for the whitelist, and catching them as they come will have to do for the banlist.


Thread admin note:
Problems have come up trying to make it possible for thread creators to add new thread admins to the thread. We might have to make it so that there is a preset list of permissions that a new thread admin can have. Probably they will be the same as the thread creator's, more or less.

[Trickster]

Yeah we love you gremlin =)

[Cup o' Wisps]

Personally I like the idea of being banned and still seeing the thread, and banning someone and having them see it. But other than that mighty fine work from our li'l mythological creatures pulling the back door levers.

I mean, if we're going to ban someone why be nice about it? Though, not seeing it would cause much -much-MUCH less possible drama I s'pose. But damn, it isn't very fun.

[Reives]

Ohnoes, now I will become paranoid about everyone making their threads invisible to me. :<

These are pretty advanced features though, nice work!

[Ronove]

For some reason, I think I am doing white listing wrong. Since I want a thread private, I white listed only my name, logged out and checked to see if I could still get into my thread, I could. So... am I doing something wrong? Or does it just not work for guests?

[Erk]

You can't whitelist only your own name, it ignores the whitelist if only the thread creator is on it as the creator is in it by default. Might be a way to make thread creators able to hide their threads from view though.

[Ronove]

umm... I thought I could make it private though. :\ Nevermind I guess. And how many names do I have to put before it actually works? I tried putting someone else's name but it still doesn't block guests from clicking on the thread and reading it.

[Alisa_Tana]

It may be that the whitelist may only prevent people from posting in your thread, not from viewing?

The original modification that I found on vB's mod board was to conduct private debates between specific users.

But you're right, I just tried it with a test account and it didn't seem to work.

[Erk]

the original mod was to prevent posting, not viewing. It's been fixed I think so viewing is also impossible.

Rye, just make it private to all but usernumber 1 - mac. he's the main admin and could see it anyway. Or to the Admin Elf user 52, I think that will work too.

[Alisa_Tana]

OH, you have to put in the number, not the nick.

[Erk]

>.< Add userIDs (user numbers, not usernames) separated by spaces. You don't need to add your own userid. /alerts elves to add <b> tags

[Alisa_Tana]

Add userIDs separated by space
is what it says on the edit whitelist page ;p

Now, not being all vB savvy, I'm a bit dense when it comes to the difference between IDs and Handles and stuff ;p

[Admin]

we'll see about making it so that you can use usernames instead of numbers. but, for now the directions are more clear.

[Cup o' Wisps]

wouldn't only usernames cause a problem if a user changed their name?

[Admin]

yes that is the big hurdle. it needs a sql query to convert the username into the appropriate usernumber which adds an extra computing step and then it also needs error trapping and stuff.

[Cup o' Wisps]

If it were possible...
Couldn't one add to their list of friends, and be able to denote a whitelisting from that available list, which wouldn't be affected by name changes and the like?
All forums of reasonable size or professionalism have an ignore list/friends list anyway. Couldn't that be integrated?

Could whitelist by "friends only", or by selecting from friends, and/or adding members (by ID or usernumber whatever one must do) who are not on the thread starter's friend's list.

[Mr_Smit]

Rye, what is the point to make a thread if only you can view it?

[Alisa_Tana]

Rye, what is the point to make a thread if only you can view it?

It gives you a chance to get everything formatted and layed out. That way members don't see it while its in progress.

[Cup o' Wisps]

It's actually not a bad idea. While people could easily counter with "then just wait till it's ready/then just preview!" it's nice to be able to build slowly instead of having to make everything fit in one posting session.

I grew tired of clicking on new thread buttons, putting in a lot of crap, hitting preview, and seeing what I posted isn't really working for what I want to convey - only to come back days later and try again. Unless I saved as a txt or something, that's a whole new post I have to type out, just to add the bits I wanted in.

Just wait though, you'll soon have whitelisting self and mac/admin only blog threads.

[Erk]

Nothin' really wrong with that, I say. Not like they take a lot of space, and if the gremlins can make them so that they don't show to users who can't view them, it won't even get in everyone's way.