Post by Deleted on May 17, 2010 14:26:02 GMT -5
Apparently people quite like the report feature as I get questions fairly often about it so here's a quick update. As admins we have found it very useful, too.
At the moment, it's disabled. You can still try to report posts, but you won't be successful. I want to get the problems fixed before I re-enable it.
The problems have arisen because of the way the reporting add-on and the Proboards forum work.
When you click on the "Report Post" link, you are asked for a reason why the post should be looked at. Then a thread is created in your name containing the reason you typed and a link to the post that you reported. This thread is posted to a hidden forum to which, for admins, a link is shown by the navigation bar.
On Proboards, "hidden" means that the forum does not show up as a link on the main page with all the other forums, but any user with the URL can access the forum. In effect, any user could access the reports, including report reasons and names of both users (reporter and reported).
This is a problem as we would like the reporting system to be anonymous. So I set the forum containing the reports to only be available for staff to view.
This is where the Proboards problem occurs. Due to the way Proboards is set up, if the forum is only available for staff to view, it is only available for staff the create threads, meaning that the reporting add-on cannot create threads in a non-staff user's name.
So, either the reporting works but anyone can view the reports after they have been received, or the reports are staff only but none of the reports sent actually go through successfully. Neither of these situations are acceptable.
I tried to get around this by setting the reports forum available to everyone, but password-protected. Unfortunately, Proboards requires this password at the point of sending a report so that hasn't worked either. This is the state that I have left the system in.
I am still looking to find a way that I can successfully avoid these problems, but so far I have found nothing. The coding is JavaScript, so to anyone with JavaScript and/or Proboards experience who thinks they can help, I would be grateful if you contacted me on Skype or simply post your ideas in this thread.
At the moment, it's disabled. You can still try to report posts, but you won't be successful. I want to get the problems fixed before I re-enable it.
The problems have arisen because of the way the reporting add-on and the Proboards forum work.
When you click on the "Report Post" link, you are asked for a reason why the post should be looked at. Then a thread is created in your name containing the reason you typed and a link to the post that you reported. This thread is posted to a hidden forum to which, for admins, a link is shown by the navigation bar.
On Proboards, "hidden" means that the forum does not show up as a link on the main page with all the other forums, but any user with the URL can access the forum. In effect, any user could access the reports, including report reasons and names of both users (reporter and reported).
This is a problem as we would like the reporting system to be anonymous. So I set the forum containing the reports to only be available for staff to view.
This is where the Proboards problem occurs. Due to the way Proboards is set up, if the forum is only available for staff to view, it is only available for staff the create threads, meaning that the reporting add-on cannot create threads in a non-staff user's name.
So, either the reporting works but anyone can view the reports after they have been received, or the reports are staff only but none of the reports sent actually go through successfully. Neither of these situations are acceptable.
I tried to get around this by setting the reports forum available to everyone, but password-protected. Unfortunately, Proboards requires this password at the point of sending a report so that hasn't worked either. This is the state that I have left the system in.
I am still looking to find a way that I can successfully avoid these problems, but so far I have found nothing. The coding is JavaScript, so to anyone with JavaScript and/or Proboards experience who thinks they can help, I would be grateful if you contacted me on Skype or simply post your ideas in this thread.
