Tagging "Probationary" users - mechanism to alert mods/admins to a user's probation?

[stardotstar]

Hi all,

I wonder what people think about the way to handle a pretty common situation.

We get users who have infringed or somehow got themselves into a status where one or another mod or admin wants to "keep an eye on them" or after being banned or other action we need to put them on probation or a good behaviour bond/notice.

Is there some way that a user can be "flagged" for extra attention when the mods are browsing the forums.

Ie perhaps a "P" graphic appears in the Post Bit which only a mod or admin will see if the user is added to a secondary user group that is a sort of "extra watch list".

They do not need to know they are in this group and it shouldn't ever become necessary to follow up but repeat offenders and people who may have been able to change their username or other instances can fly under the radar and something like this could be a useful notice to allow mods to immediately see that this member needs watching.

Perhaps even with a mouse over the "P" user notes could pop up?

Any mods that ring a bell with this kind of functionality or tackle the situation differently?

Love to hear your thoughts.

Might be work hacking something very simple together - hidden user profile field that displays in postbit to mods/admins only?

Will

[Lynne]

I have not seen anything like this. You could add them to a secondary usergroup, then in the postbit do a condition that only shows a "P" to the mods if a user happens to be in that usergroup.

[stardotstar]

OK so I have put this in the postbit:

<!-- Is Probationary? Start -->

<if condition="is_member_of($bbuserinfo, 6, 5) AND is_member_of($post, 136)"> 
<img src="images/P.gif" alt="User is on P-Plates" />
</if>

<!-- Is Probationary? End -->

This displays as a P plate graphic on postbit for members in the secondary "probation group" only to members of the admin or supermod groups.

So far so good.

--------------- Added [DATE]1256865582[/DATE] at [TIME]1256865582[/TIME] ---------------

Trying to work out how I could get the last usernote to display as the popup box alt text:

In searching I have found various references to components that apply to the usernotes.

$usernote[total]

($vbphrase[last_note]: $usernote[lastpostdate] <span class="time">$usernote[lastposttime]</span>)

But I am not sure what they can be used for, if they need more conditionals around them to display since the group test is already done and the groups in questions hould be able to see the notes...

Any ideas?

[Lynne]

usernote is a different table. So, if you want anything to do with the usernotes to be available to you in the postbit, you will have to create a plugin to hook into the $post query and JOIN with the usernote table and grab the information you want. Then you will be able to use the information in your postbit template.

[stardotstar]

Thank you that tells me more in one statement about how the template and hook/plugin system works in vB than I have learnt in the rest of my playing with simple customisations!

I will learn to understand the problem a bit better by looking at the templates which are allowed to call on usernotes and the php files that back them.

Perhaps then I can begin to work on designing and coding a mod...

Thanks again Lynne,
Will