How do I assign the moderators the ability to ban a user in the forum.  As the root admin I have the option to do that but not moderators.

From Discussion Forum Setup - ExpressionEngine Documentation:

Find this area under the Moderators link in the User Management section. Moderators are special members or Member Groups. You can add Moderators on a forum-by-forum basis and assign them permissions above and beyond those you normally assign through the regular forum permissions.

There are six additional permissions that you can grant a Moderator:

  * Can Edit Posts: The Moderator can edit posts by other members in addition to their own.
  * Can Move Posts: The Moderator can move posts between forums. For instance, if a thread was started in the wrong forum the Moderator can move it to the correct one.
  * Can Delete Posts: The Moderator can delete posts.
  * Can Change Post Status: The Moderator can change the status of a post, so they can close a post to new replies.
  * Can Post Announcements: The Moderator can post an “announcement” that shows up in all forums.
  * Can View IP Addresses: The Moderator can see the IP address of all users who leave posts or replies.

Remember, these permissions are in addition to any that may already be assigned to the Member Group when the forum was set up.

Thanks for that but I already knew that one;)  My question is was, is there any other way to do it?

What I had to do is make my moderator an admin, the forum is very limited on what it can do and hope that changes in the future.

Only Forum Administrators can ban members, dvancouver, as that’s a rather Super-Admin-y task.

Hey Derek, Why then does every other forum software allow moderators the ability to ban users,like I said before needs to be included;)  But I like the wordy you used Super-Admin-y:)

I can’t speak to why another product chooses to implement features in a given way, I can only describe how ExpressionEngine works and why our features work the way they do.  You’ll have to do quite a bit of convincing to make me believe that non-administrators should have this extreme level of undoable power.

You’re funny you know that, convince you, no I would never try to convince you.  I will just say this, look at the other 99% of forum software and you will see that they allow moderators the ability or can be assigned to them ban powers.  It’s simple facts really so basically I can just hack the code to make it work, what else is there left for me to do, one should trust their moderators, just saying;)

(moving this to the Feature Request forum where the conversation is more appropriate)

I don’t mean this flippantly, but saying that other applications do something a certain way doesn’t make much difference to us.  Our product is not the creation of copying features and behavior of other applications, but a unique product of our own creation and design.  If a feature is compelling and necessary, that’s another thing altogether, but a feature’s inclusion in other software does not by definition make it compelling for ours.  Perhaps the philosophical difference in moderator roles in this regard is due to a difference in what the ban feature does?  In ExpressionEngine, banning gives you the option to ban the member, ban and delete all of their posts, and even ban the IP address.

As for trusting moderators, I agree you should be able to trust them, but that doesn’t mean that powers should be distributed equally.  For instance, on our forums, our technical support staff have moderation abilities.  But it would be inappropriate for them to make a decision about whether or not a user should banned, and which of the three options mentioned above should be used.  I’m not diametrically opposed to adding this as an option for site creators to give as an allowed moderator action, but like all feature requests, I do so enjoy a good convincing.  I mean, if you trust them so wholly, why not just make them Administrators?

You know, just us two having a little banter:)  But it’s true also what you said and I do get your point, EE is a very unique software and by the way I do like it allllot.  If ban powers is an option like the other 6 that is available for mods that would be good. Giving the root admin the ability to turn it on and off. Even if it’s just to IP ban or user ban without the ability to kill all posts.  I agree that it’s not a function that I would leave in the hands of a new mod on the team just an experienced one.  I am so use to my mods as they have been with me for sometime, like part of a family, not to say that they can’t make mistakes though.  I did put the mod in question as an administrator so that took care of that problem.  In the midst of what to add to the forum part of the software I again am not going to try and convince you to do so just for my needs.  I think you probably have much more on your plate to concern yourself with, so I can say I will just do a work around or let them be admins.  Thanks for your patience in working through the question.

As an Administrator, you’d have access to look into settings in the admin panel that affects your site, which might not be what you’d want a Moderator to do, but you do wish for them to be able to enforce the forums in a manner where you as an Administrator doesn’t have to worry about it. Right now, you have two options:

- Make the Moderator an Administrator, and trust he doesn’t mess up any settings or look into templates/whatever.
- Get the Moderator to contact you/another Administrator every time someone needs a ban on the forums (temp/perm ban for spam, offensive posts etc.).

I know ban is a pretty strict thing to do, but for large communities, it may be necesarry, and having moderators you trust enough to enforce the forum (and forum alone) is a good way to ensure the community runs smoothly. Just saying, there is a reason why Moderators can ban people in forum software you’d normally find today (phpBB, vBulletin, SMF etc.)

wolfrey, giving someone the role of Administrator in the forums doesn’t give them any access at all to your back end, your templates, themes, settings, etc.  It is just an administrator of the forums’ front end.