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