automatic suspension of posting
 

My site wants to institute a Rules of Conduct, and our plan is to post it in a thread, and then require members to post to that thread as means of acknowledgement. What I'm looking for is a way to automatically suspend posting for all members who don't post to the thread within a certain period of time. Is there any way I can do that?

very interesting idea.

I reckon you could run SQL queries to do that.

Can you elaborate? I'm brand-spankin' new to SQL, and have an abnormal fear of breaking things, ;).

I was a klutzy child.

maybe some sql genius out there may be able to do it without code-hacking, but if i make this mod, i'd use codehack since i'm more comfortable with it.
you can add one column named reqthread (say 0 for unread, 1 for read), then use vb cronjob to suspend posting privilege of those who didn't read the required thread.

tnguy,

Can you elaborate (or else explain it as if to a toddler,lol). Also, is what you're envisioning good for reading the thread, or can it also be made specific to having to POST to the thread?

There are probably several ways--some more work than others.

How many members are you talking about? Do you want to do this one time, or for every new member forward? How many new members a week are you expecting? What is you comfort level with modifying the guts of your forum? What is your tolerance level for tedious manual tasks?

--don

Ok, hmm, lots of questions.

We have just reopened after a brief shutdown in which we dumped everything. Members are just trickling back in, we've got about 50 right now, and at our busiest before we shutdown we had at least a few hundred members. Right now we're getting about 10 new members a day, but I expect that to trickle down to maybe one or two a day. This is something I'd like to be permanently incorporated for all new members forward.

Define 'guts of your forum'. ;)

My tolerance level for tedious manual tasks is above average, but not saint-like. At this point, I'm envisioning my only option as having to suspend posting member by member, and I'd like something less tedious than that.

I'm curious as to why you want to do this ?

How do you want to do it - move them to a custom usergroup, or the standard "banned" group.

I want to do this because I want all members to read an acknowledge a standard rules of conduct. We've had some problems in the past, and we're hoping to make this a preemptive strike.

Ultimately, I'd want to put them in a usergroup that was restricted solely to that thread until they posted to it.