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[Morwen Lagann]

This post details the set of usergroups that we are currently planning to support on the new IC forums. Since the usergroups will generally only be noticeably visible to the admin/moderation team, there shouldn't be any need to change anything drastically from here.

Member: These are accounts belonging to the general userbase.
- They should have posting access to all regular subforums.

Moderator: These are the anonymous accounts that are used for actual moderation action on the forums.
- They should have posting access to all subforums including moderation sections.
- They should have the ability to move, merge, or split threads in ANY subforum.
- They should NOT be able to see IP addresses. If an issue arises where IP addresses become relevant to resolving it, then the administrators should handle it.
- They should have the ability to send users PMs even when the user has disabled that functionality.
- They should have the ability to enter bans/mutes but NOT remove them.

Psuedo-Moderator: These are the regular "member" accounts for the moderation team.
- They should have posting access to all subforums including moderation sections.
- They should NOT have any access to moderation tools except those subforums.
- They should NOT be able to see IP addresses.

Administrator: These are the anonymous "supermod" accounts used by the moderation staff who are also part of the Backstage team.
- They should have posting access to all subforums including moderation sections.
- They should have the ability to move, merge, or split threads in ANY subforum.
- They should have the ability to outright delete posts in the most extreme of circumstances (as it is on Backstage).
- They should be able to see the IP address attached to posts.
- They should have the ability to send users PMs even when the user has disabled that functionality.
- They should have the ability to enter and remove bans/mutes.

Other notes:
- To any other user, a "pseudo-mod" account will look like a regular member account. They won't have special titles like the mods have on Backstage (like the "The Mods" title that Jek, Ghost and I have), so the only way they'll appear different is if you're logged into one. They are simply for the convenience of the admin/moderation team so that they do not have to keep logging in and out to check reports and the like.
- We're not sure whether we'll be handing out multiple pseudo-mod accounts to the people who need them or not. It would be easier to keep tidy if we just gave people one for their "main" posting accounts, but we'll see. Having a proper SSO/API plugin for people would simply this greatly (see first orange question below).
- Admins will use pseudo-mod accounts to post as regular users.

What's the current plan for those of us who have more than one character we want to post with?
Right now we don't have an easy solution to the problem. I have poked around but have yet to find any forum plugin for SMF that uses the EVE API that includes the ability of users to associate multiple characters with their account and then assign one of those characters to posts on an individual basis. Temar's, the only one I have really been able to learn anything about, allows you to associate multiple characters with an account but globally changes your display name based on which one you have selected. This is obviously not going to work for us, so at this time, the current plan appears to be that you will have to create a new account for each character, and just log in and out as necessary. We apologize if it's inconvenient (we don't care much for the idea either), but we don't have any other solution available right now. If we're able to come up with something that works better later down the road, we'll happily chase after it.

I don't want anyone to see my IP address!
You're just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Or don't participate - the choice is yours. We're willing to compromise by only allowing admin accounts to see that information, which will limit it to 5 people, at current count - specifically the current active Backstage team - but someone needs to have access to that information for administrative and potential legal reasons, and by keeping it to the current Backstage team that means that no additional people gain incidental access to that info that did not have it already. (That said - if there's an issue so severe that action needs to be taken against a player rather than their individual characters, it may become necessary to divulge that information to the moderation team in the process of resolving the issue.)

Please feel free to ask more questions if you have them and we'll try to address them.

[Lyn Farel]

Considering the hassle it could potentially be to implement that multiple characters feature, i don't really see login in and out as such a big deal...

[Ché Biko]

On the Psuedo mod accounts:
These have to be created by the admins, as opposed to applying the "title" to an existing account?
Either way, I don't see the mods getting multiple pseudo-mod accounts as adding a lot of work. Well, at first, maybe, but I don't think that there'll be a lot of change in the composition of the mod team over time?
Seems like something that may cost some time/effort for the admins, but may well save a lot more time/effort for the mods.

[Morwen Lagann]

On the Psuedo mod accounts:
These have to be created by the admins, as opposed to applying the "title" to an existing account?
Either way, I don't see the mods getting multiple pseudo-mod accounts as adding a lot of work. Well, at first, maybe, but I don't think that there'll be a lot of change in the composition of the mod team over time?
Seems like something that may cost some time/effort for the admins, but may well save a lot more time/effort for the mods.

They don't have to be created by the admins, the admins just have to add them to the usergroup. So it's more like taking an existing member account and then just putting it in the psuedo-mod group when that person has been added to the moderation team. It doesn't take a lot of time or effort - it's more a case of, should we have to remove someone from the team for some reason, we then have more accounts to track down and remove from the usergroup. Honestly I imagine it would come down to user choice. If the moderator in question would like to have multiple posting accounts under that usergroup I don't see any reason we would say no.

We haven't entirely nailed down what we're doing regarding the selection of additional moderators yet either, which is why I haven't posted anything about it yet.

[Saede Riordan]

This seems largely good to me. I wouldn't mess around with any exotic plugins unless they're really well put together to do what you want, and that doesn't seem to be the case here. Just let people register accounts as 'character name' and if it starts getting abused, deal with it on a case by case basis.