[RC] Auto Groups MOD 0.2.2

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

The warning function is already implemented. If a user's warning count decreases, either by warnings expiring or an admin revoking a warning, the user will "time out" of the group.

I hadn't thought about using endogenous variables like "time in group." I don't suppose it would be that difficult to code, but more work is always bad.

Anybody else think that is a good idea?

[umpire66]

I'm sorry that I missed the warning function. Shame on me!

[...]but more work is always bad.

LOL!
(Geez I would like to help you guys in some coding stuff, but unfortunately I'm no coder )

[...]
Anybody else think that is a good idea?

[umpire66]

Other 3 suggestions/doubs:

1-As already suggested it would be nice to have an ?Allow only list - for this group? where you can specify only certain members that will be allowed to be promoted to that particular group, but also an ?Exclude List - for this group? where you can put members that won?t be auto-promoted to that group.
I can think of staff members that will fall in another group (so it?s like an auto-demotion in this case) after a certain number of posts. It?s true that they will be able to change their default group in the staff panel (Note: only if the feature ?Can change default usergroup? is enabled by the admin in the ACP), but if there are several groups (so several auto-promotion-demotion) this could happen more then once and could be annoying.

So it would be awesome to have for each Group an ?Exclude list? and ?Allow only list? that will exclude or allow certain members to be auto-promoted for that particular group.

But I have a question: what would happen if we want to have different groups that shares the same range of posts? Example:
Initial default group ?New User? (posts 1-49) and group ?Advanced User? (posts 50-150).
Then we want to have a special group that is the only allowed to do some special things:
Group ?New Helper User? (posts 1-99), ?Advanced Helper User? (posts 100-250).
How would this be handled? In which group would a new registered member be placed when he reaches 1 post? And if the user then is joined in the ?Helpers? groups?

Is it possible to make some sort of ?Set of groups?, where a direct relation between determined groups is set?
So in the previous example make one set based on the groups ?New User? and ?Advanced User?, and another set based on ?New Helper User? and ?Advanced Helper User?. In this case it is checked in which set of group you are part of, and then the auto-promotion acts accordingly. If you are a ?New User?, the next automatic step can only be ?Advanced User, and if ?New Helper User? --> ?Advanced Helper User?.

Am I rambling?

2-Another minor suggestion for future releases (yes other work! :-P): automatic PM after auto group promotion.

Immediately after the (auto) promotion, a PM is sent to the user informing him of the promotion. It would be nice to set different PM's for different groups promotion (text editable), so that the user is informed of the differences (if there are any) of the new group he is now part of.

Is it possible? In any case...thanks for your work A_Jelly_Doughnut! It's really appreciated!

3- If I want to set two groups: group ?A? (post 0-4) group ?B? (5-9), to make everything run correctly I have to set for
group ?A?: Minimum post count=0 or 1 (it?s the same ) Maximum post count=5 and for
group ?B?: Minimum post count=5 Maximum post count=10
Shouldn?t be more logical to make it work using the following values:
Group A: Minimum post count=0 Maximum post count=4
Group ?B?: Minimum post count=5 Maximum post count=9 ?
The minimum posts count of the previous group and the maximum posts count of the next group should be different (1 post different), not the same, as it is strange that for a same number (5 in this case), we have two groups (it?s not logical to define a group with one of the two extremes of a range with the same value of one of the two extremes of another group). The mod works fine, but if one has to set it...it?s a little bit strange to comprehend, and not that logical in my opinion.

If I put the settings I have suggested, I become member of group ?A? only at post 1 (and not at post 0) (but this is in any case), at the 4th post I?m not member of group ?A?, and not even of group ?B?, at the 5th post I?m promoted to group ?B?.

Sorry for this long post. I hope you don?t mind me making all these suggestions.

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

1) Having an automatic demotion doesn't make a lot of sense. Users have the ability to resign groups at any point...which is an interesting point, from the perspective of this MOD, and particularly its feature which places users into groups based on warnings
An allow or exclude list does not make a lot of sense to me. It would become unwieldy (inefficient) after 15-20 users, and under that number, admins should be able to easliy keep up.

Users can be added to an "infinite" number of groups upon posting a post. Having multiple groups begin at the same value is of no significance.

It is theoretically possible to have a hierarchy of groups to add, but if users are automatically added, then would it not make sense to have only one with the "make default" flag?

2) It wouldn't be easy.

3) The current behavior of zero makes the MOD considerably more efficient. Say I have a board with a lot of lurkers. If their post count is zero, then we save one SQL query per page. If their # of warnings is zero, we save another.

The removal of the >= behavior of the maximum is probably a tweak that should be implemented, though. Only get pulled if you actually exceed the maximum.

[umpire66]

Ooook. Thanks for the reply.

EDIT: I meant that having the moderators auto promoted to another group was like having an auto-demotion (from staff member ---> to another group would be like a demotion in that particular case). I didn't want an auto-demotion mod, as indeed it doesn't make a lot of sense.

[geoffreak]

Jelly,
Do you plan on adding a feature where only users from specific groups can be promoted to other groups?

For example:
if you had a special group that you put users into manually, they would be bumped up based on posts like this mod normally does but users not in the special group wouldn't be able to be auto-promoted into this auto group.


Do you catch my drift or am I confusing you

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

No, I do not plan to implement such a feature. I don't see how it would be useful, TBH. Users can be in an unlimited number of groups, and "restrictive" groups can't really do much. Only potential issue is coloring/default group, right?

[umpire66]

I gave it a deeper thought.
Let?s think of a board with 15 staff members (group ?Staff?), and other 10 (?New User?, ?Common User?, ?Advanced User?, etc, etc?) groups that normal user will join automatically with their increasing number of posts.

I believe that in the current state of this mod every time a staff member reaches the number of posts that is set for the automatic change of one of the 10 groups for normal user, also the staff member will have his group changed (because obviously each of the 10 groups is set to be the default), so he?ll have to go to his control panel and change his default group back. I believe this would happen each time he reaches the number of posts set by the auto mod group?and managing 15 accounts it?s not easy?.not even if they were less then 15-20 as you said an Admin should easily handle?I should check every time a staff member makes some posts and if he changes his group I should set his default group as staff again? they can handle that for them selves, but it?s annoying.

Example:
15 staff members in ?Staff? group
10 groups (?New User? (0-19 posts), ?Common User? (20-39), ?Advanced User?(40-100), etc, etc?)

If ?A? staff member reaches 20posts: he will auto ?promoted? to ?Common User?, he will have to set his default group back to staff, then he reaches 40posts: he has to set again his default group back to staff?.and this all the times for every of the 10 groups.
As you can see an ?Exclude List? would be really handy, as you would put all the staff members in this list (a limited number of 1-15) for each of the 10 groups. Then you won?t have to worry of them again (and they wont have to continually change their default group), as everything will run as it should.

P.S. Obviously every of the 10 normal user group is set as default. As soon as the user reaches the n° of post set, he has his group changed to the ?higher?.

Again (in conjunction to what geoffreak said), if I would like to make a special auto-promotion for staff members based on number of posts made, I would put all the staff members (and only them) in the ?Allow only list? of all the staff groups, to prevent that any other member (which is not part of the staff) is automatically added.

I guess that we just have two different opinions?

[taiwai]

but if it does "demote" the admin/mod by changing their default group, you can just change it again in your usercp and I don't think the mod will change it again...

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

If the rank is set in the user properties, rather than the group, that shouldn't matter. Or assign ranks based on post counts instead of groups.

I really would rather not deal with an exclude list