Moderater forum suggestion

[kathlynn]

Hi, I'd like to make a suggestion, that if possible/feasible there be a (sub)forum where a user may post but only they and mods can see that person's posts.
Uses of said forum,
questions about posting a topic (for example not knowing where or if it would be appropriate to post something)
someone needing help with tagging (I believe it was mentioned a topic/post can only be reported once)
discussions regarding to mod-user issues (when appropriate).

For the first two, I list them because we don't have a "who's online" function, and rather then one or many of the mods (who might or might not be on soon) getting barraged by PMs for these issues, it could be posted there and the first mod could deal with it (if it's that simple), or just weigh in, or what ever is needed.

[CodaSammy]

I like it, but as far as I'm aware it's not possible. I'll look around, though.

Other possible solutions to the same problem - report a random post, and just say in the description what you're contacting us for and how it has nothing to do with the post. Clunky, but it would work!

I'd really like a "mail the team" option, where you can send a PM that goes to all of us, or to a joint mailbox. Again,I don't know whether that's possible, but it seems more likely.

Thanks, kathlynn! Good thoughts.

[kathlynn]

I don't know if it's possible here, but I've been on two other forums where it was possible, which why I even thought of it. (sadly one of the sites (meez) requires you to sign up to access any of the site, the other I'm not comfortable publicly linking to, though I can pm it to you if it would help you)

[CodaSammy]

Ooh, OK, knowing it's possible is helpful! The main thing is whether the other forums are run on phpBB, but I don't know whether that information is easy to find.

[RollingHead]

I'd really like a "mail the team" option, where you can send a PM that goes to all of us, or to a joint mailbox. Again,I don't know whether that's possible, but it seems more likely.

Would it work to have a sockpuppet account for receiving messages that all admins/mods can access? Or have it forward any messages to the rest of the team?

[Adelene]

If you don't mind going through a third party service, I could set up a thing where someone can fill out a google form and whatever they put in would be emailed to all the mods. I'm not sure how you'd make it available on the forums, but if there's a way to put a button in post headers that sends people to an arbitrary url, that would work. (You might also have to worry about spam, but if it's only linked from the bits of the forum that you have to be signed in to see, that shouldn't be a big problem, and I can add some blacklist functionality if it turns out to be.)

[carbonatedwit]

I'm working on a solution right now, that will be all the forum. It got derailed by the upgrade-broke-things problem, but I hope to have it working in the next day or two.

Sadly the most obvious solution with forum permissions doesn't work, and the phpBB bug to that effect was filed in 2011 and remains unfixed.

[Pewtarizard]

That's a shame, I used to use a sort of forum as helpdesk system on a board I managed - sadly vbulletin is well expensive :( Fingers crossed your other solution goes through, it's a REALLY useful tool.