[Pete Svarrior]

Following up on Thork's recent outrage with Pongo's nomination for moderator, and in the interest of general transparency, I would like to propose that the moderation log be made available for viewing by all registered users.

The moderation provides a backtrace of all thread moves, splits, deletions, edits, user bans and ban triggers, making a thread sticky or revoking that status, etc. I don't think any of this information is particularly sensitive (please correct me if I'm wrong or if I missed something that is), and it could provide our userbase with the opportunity for a more fact-based judgement of how the moderation team works for them.

Unfortunately, at a glance, SMF doesn't appear to have an easy way to facilitate this. Out of the box, being able to view the moderation log is included in the "Administrate forum and database" bundle, which includes a bunch of weird and wonderful things that we probably don't want to give everyone access to:

This permission allows a user to:

• change forum, database and theme settings
• manage packages
• use the forum and database maintenance tools
• view the error and mod logs

Use this permission with caution, as it is very powerful.

Assuming this motion passes, I'm happy to investigate a way to implement it.

[Blanko]

There are two sensitive elements from what I can notice. One being display of IPs in general, and the other being email addresses on ban triggers.

Aside from those, the proposal is fine with me.

[Pete Svarrior]

Both fair points. I suppose ban triggers would have to be made less specific (e.g. just "Added ban triggers" without specifying what the triggers were), and the IP column would have to go.

[Thork]

I don't care that Pongo is a mod. I just think it is a bad appointment as he is never here. If I thought it was going to be the end of the world, I would make a poll to leverage the power of the proletariat against this tyranny.

Also I'm not sure you need to grant forum logs. You are just inviting arguments over small semantics. We have a ban log if someone wants to see serious repercussions of a dispute. Be like the Federal Reserve. Its ok everyone knows you have gold, but under no circumstances tell them how much of it is theirs or show it to them. If they ask for their gold, 2020 seems to be a reasonable time frame.

[Pete Svarrior]

I don't care that Pongo is a mod. I just think it is a bad appointment as he is never here. If I thought it was going to be the end of the world, I would make a poll to leverage the power of the proletariat against this tyranny.

Also I'm not sure you need to grant forum logs. You are just inviting arguments over small semantics. We have a ban log if someone wants to see serious repercussions of a dispute. Be like the Federal Reserve. Its ok everyone knows you have gold, but under no circumstances tell them how much of it is theirs or show it to them. If they ask for their gold, 2020 seems to be a reasonable time frame.

ok thanks Thork

[Pongo]

I think this is a good idea. Transparency in positions of power helps ensure no one is abusing anything. A few months ago on the old site, someone was leading a witch hunt on moderation saying that mods were ban-crazy. It would have been nice to have something like this to point to and show them how incorrect they were.

Too bad it sounds like a lot of work to implement.

[Pete Svarrior]

Too bad it sounds like a lot of work to implement.

I'll take care of that. It might take me a while to get around to, but it won't be too much of a problem.

[xasop]

I support this idea in principle, though I'd like to see an implementation before giving it my unreserved support. As well as the concerns Blanko raised, I think moderation in secret forums (such as the staff forum) should be omitted from the public log. This isn't an attempt to avoid transparency; we almost never have private discussions in the staff forum, and anything in there is usually private for a good reason.

pizaaplanet, I think we've seen sufficient support for this idea that you might as well go ahead and write the code. I'm curious to see what you come up with.