I have been taking some grief from other phpBB.com team members over the fact that I’m still running version 2. I can understand why. I’ve been taking even more grief from some other folks because I’m still writing code for and updating my phpBB2 boards. Which I can also understand. But I’ve been working on a MOD that I really like, and I’m wondering if there is enough interest in phpBB2 MODs anymore to make it worth the effort to write it up, release it, and support it.

My most popular MOD has been the Page Permissions MOD. I have no idea how many people are actively using it, but it certainly does not get many support questions in the release topic. I think it’s a testament to the number of folks that helped test it that there have not been any incremental releases for quite some time. I think for the people that use it, it’s just working. And that’s a good thing. That means that it has not taken much of my time. One of the reasons I personally like this MOD so much is that it replaces a number of different MODs. For example, you don’t need a specific MOD to protect the memberlist or profiles from public viewing, just use the Page Permissions MOD. You don’t need a special MOD to password protect a forum, just use the Page Permissions and restrict access to a specific forum to a specific group. It also provides a counter for each page that you want to apply a counter to, and it differentiates between public (guest) and member (registered) views.

This next MOD that I am considering would work in the same way, meaning it would replace a number of other MODs and provide a nice central way to manage a lot of different features.

Post Notes MOD

The next MOD that I’m considering is called Post Notes. It is partially inspired by what I perceive to be a gap in functionality for phpBB3, and partially by a particular feature that I wanted to have on my own board. Simply put, a Post Note is a way to annotate a specific post. These annotations could come from a manual entry (a user has reported a post) or from a system-generated event (the topic is moved, split, or merged) or from a moderator (reacting to a reported post).

The “gap in functionality” that I’m referring to in phpBB3 is related to the Report a Post feature. A user can report a post, and the moderator team gets a queue to handle. But here’s the gap: there is no way for me as a moderator to respond to the original poster. In some cases I will review a reported post, and as a moderator I don’t agree with the original poster’s assessment. So if I decide to leave the topic open it means I have to take the additional step of sending a PM to the original reporter. Or just ignore it, which is what I tend to do out of laziness.

Wouldn’t it be cool if the original “report” action stored a note in a post-notes table, and then as a moderator I could respond to that note with a brief explanation of why the post was closed, or why it might remain open, based on my decision? I think so.

I have seen some Report Post MODs for phpBB2, but none of them worked the way I wanted them to, so I wrote my own. This MOD integrates with the Post Notes MOD very well.

Moderator Discussions

On my largest board we have a specific forum where we talk about posts that might be borderline as far as the rules. But these posts are not attached to the post or topic in question, other than by including an embedded link to the post. Wouldn’t it be nice if instead the discussion could take place (hidden still, of course) on the post itself?

This is a core feature of the Post Notes MOD; to allow moderators or administrators to discuss a post.

Moderator Log

When a moderator moves or splits or locks a topic on my board, we will often edit the post and say why we’re doing that particular action. But it’s optional. That means a moderator might decide to move a topic but never gets around to saying why the topic was moved. There is also no log that a particular moderator took a particular action. I’ve seen various Moderator Log MODs as well, but this concept is perfect for the Post Notes MOD. Every different action in modcp.php now calls a function called log_moderator_topic_action() and this function creates a non-editable entry in the Post Notes for that topic. That way even if a moderator does not take the time to post in the topic (or to edit an existing post in the topic) I still know who did what. I think that’s important, and it’s a perfectly easy extension of the Post Notes MOD.

Edit History

In a standard phpBB2 board there are two fields used to record post edit history. These fields record the last edit time and the number of edits made, but only by the person that made the post. If a moderator or administrator edits someone else’s post, there is no record of that action. This is potentially a major problem. It is one of many reasons why you should select your moderators extremely carefully.

I have seen some MOD Requests where board owners wanted to see a history of edits, including who edited a post and when. There is no place to store that information in a standard phpBB board, but here again is a perfect application for Post Notes. During the posting process (in includes/functions_post.php) I capture if an edit is going on, and if so, create a non-editable post note that records who edited the post and when. Now I have a complete edit history, even if the edit was done by someone other than the original poster.

See where this is going?

I realize that some of these features are in phpBB3. But I don’t think they’re all combined into one place like I am doing with this MOD. And besides, this is for phpBB2 anyway.

The Big Question

The big question becomes: should I write this up and release it? Is there be any interest in new MODs for phpBB2? I realize the obvious place to ask this question is in a new topic in the MOD Development board at phpbb.com but I have not made it to that step yet.

I am still going to finish it for my own use. It’s just a question of whether anyone else will get it as well.