I need help restricting PM's to moderator and users

[spicywedge]

Hi

I am looking for a way that I can restrict users from sending PM's to each other but at the same time still allow them to send and receive PM's to and from the admin staff on my board.

Is there a way that this can be done or am I stuck with either keeping the PM system on/off for everyone. Any help is appreciated.

[Outbackmark]

I did this on a couple of boards, turn your PMs off then create a forum with permissions set to regular members only able to see thier own threads.
Change the PM links to a newpost in that forum (posbit, user cp and profile etc)
I can give you the template changes if you need them.
This setup allows Mods and Admins to see all threads in the "Contact Staff" forum and members only see their own threads - works like a charm and stops all the PM rubbish in it's tracks!

[spicywedge]

That would be brilliant if you could send that on. It is proving a real pain on my board.

[Outbackmark]

OK I will post here and PM it to you -

Forum changes
1. Open your forum manager and create a forum where you would like it, I called mine "Contact the Staff", in the forum setup page set it as follows
Act as Forum - yes
Forum is Active - yes
Forum is Open - yes
The other settings can be set as you would normally do.

Click save then select Set Forum Permissions, click on Registered Users and set the following-
Can View Forum - yes
Can View Thread Content - yes
Can View Others' Threads - no
Can Use Email to Friend - no
Can Download Attachments - yes
Can See Deletion Notices - no
Can See Thumbnails - yes
Can Search Forums- yes
Can Post Threads - yes
Can Reply to Own Threads - yes
Can Reply to Others' Threads - no
Can Edit Own Posts - up to you
Can Delete Own Posts - no
Can Delete Own Threads - no
Can Open / Close Own Threads - no
Can Move Own Threads - no
Can Rate Threads - no
Follow Forum Moderation Rules - yes
The rest I set to no, but does not really matter.
Click save and set the same for other usergroups that you do not wish to be able to see all threads etc. Mine is set so Admins and Mods can see and answer all threads, but this is up to you.

Usergroup permission changes
Turn off PMs for the usergroups concerned in the Usergroup Manager, set stored PMs to 0.


Template Changes

Open your Style Manager and click edit templates on the style you are using, if using more than one you will have to change them all.
Find template MEMERINFO under Memberifo Templates and double click toopen the editor.

Find

				<if condition="$show['pm']">
					<li class="vbmenu_option"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/sendtofriend.gif" alt="" class="alt2 inlineimg" /> <a href="private.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newpm&amp;u=$prepared[userid]" rel="nofollow"><phrase 1="$prepared[username]">$vbphrase[send_private_message_to_x]</phrase></a></li>
				</if>

Replace the link

private.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newpm&u=$prepared[userid]

with a link to newthread in your Contact forum, to get that, open the forum, click New Thread and copy the url before you click submit.
It should look like this http://www.yoursite.url/forum/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=72
Also replace

$vbphrase[send_private_message_to_x]

with

Contact Staff

or whatever you want to call it.
Click save
When someone clicks it they will be automatically sent to a newthread in the contact forum.

3. Now go the the postbit templates and edit the postbit template and the postbit legacy templates, you need to do the same thing, find the links to newpm, which are in the dropdown menu and replace it as per above, then save the templates.

If you are new to template edits do yourself a favour and download PSPad, it is free and a great editor, before you change the templates copy all the text from your present template into a .txt file and save it on your hard drive, then you can always paste it back in of you run into trouble.
The edited templates will show up in red in the list, so if they are already red it means that there have been edits done to the template and it always is a good thing to save a copy.