Just a reminder for maintainers of public forums - the "channelreputation" addon allows you to permit community moderation and limit the posting and commenting of new (and even established) forum members to avoid spam and trolls.
Here's a basic rundown of how it works (Sorry, I know I've promised documentation - but it's not my strong suit and I have other functional requirements for some of my ongoing projects - if someone wants to take what's here and expand it - or even ask questions and is willing to create more comprehensive documentation, I'd be VERY grateful! Suggestions for improvements are welcome as well - realizing this was originally created for my own use-cases which may differ from your own.)
1) A certain amount of "reputation" is required to post or comment (posting and commenting can have different requirements).
2) A new user can be given a certain amount of "reputation" right off the bat (I usually use an amount equal to 3 or 4 comments or 1 top-level post + 1 or 2 comments)
3) Reputation is earned:
* over time, (channel owners can configure the system so that reputation is automatically gained), OR
* when approved moderators "give" reputation, OR
* when community members "give" reputation.
* NOTE: The amount of reputation that can be "given" is based on how much reputation the "giver" has themselves - certain limits can be set in the configuration.
4) Reputation is "lost":
* by posting or commenting (each can be configured to "cost" a different amount), OR
* by approved moderators reducing the reputation of a poster/commenter, OR
* by community members who have "enough" reputation themselves reducing the reputation of a poster/commenter.
* Again NOTE: the amount of reputation that a moderator can reduce another member by is based on the reputation of the moderator themselves.
5) Giving or reducing the reputation of a poster/commenter also COSTS the person doing the moderating.
6) Approved and designated "moderators" can be given a certain number of "free" moderation points per moderating activity. These are used before the the designated/approved moderator starts to lose their own reputation by moderating others.
Like (almost) everything else in Hubzilla - it is HIGHLY configurable and customizable (LOTS OF OPTIONS - but it is designed for easing the moderation activities of larger groups which can have very diverse needs - so it needs lots of options). There is the ability to specify each threshhold (comment, post, moderate), and the ability to specify how fast someone can automatically "gain" reputation based on their current level (for example, it may be VERY QUICK to gain reputation to comment, but gaining reputation to post will be more slow, and gaining reputation to moderate others can be even more slow).
CURRENT ISSUES: If a user goes directly to the forum page - they will be unable to post/comment unless they have enough reputation to do so. However, if a person tries to !Forward a message or comment from their personal network feed, their post may appear on their own feed but not be accepted by the forum - and there is (currently) no notification that the post was blocked/denied. There is work being done to at least notify them, but it is not yet ready for release.
An early "workaround" is to use the "deliverynotice" addon which notifies users when their post/comment has not been delivered to/accepted by a recipient. There is a current known issue with "deliverynotice" for users who have a channel that is cloned on both 4.0RC and 3.8.x that is being investigated.
Now that 4.0 is nearing final release and the Zot6 pieces are more fully understood and formed, work on a more robust notification system can continue and will (hopefully) be completed shortly after 4.0 final comes out.
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