User moderation in Askbot

Note

This is a draft specification

Concepts

User status. The following user status levels are meaningful in askbot:

• administrator - user with moderation and administration privileges

• moderator - user with moderation privileges

• approved - user that can make full use of the forum

• watched - like approved user, except his/her contributions are not sent by email

• suspended - only can edit own existing posts and own profile, will see suspension message

• blocked - can’t do anything except send feedback, will see blocking message

These status levels are mutually exclusive.

Admin panel. Each user has a sub/view of his/her account giving tools.

Admin panel exposes moderation and administration tools. Note that there are some moderation tools located in other places (e.g. question views).

If a user can see own admin panel, the panel will always be restricted in function, because it never makes to communicate by email with him/herself, etc.

Moderation tools:

• change user status in range from blocked to approved

• arbitrarily add/subtract reputation and leave a message

• send PM to user

• merge tags (tags view, )

• merge questions (need special tool - sticky selection in search?)

Restrictions on moderators

• cannot moderate other moderators or admins, cannot access admin tools

Administration tools:

• edit user profiles

• change user status to moderators and remove it

• merge users

• delete accounts

• delete user contributions