[RFC] Usability: Always allow user to respond to PM

[Oleg]

That would simply be to reduce the chance of abuse, but I suppose it isn't that big of an issue.

Consider a user who replied to someone and then realized they forgot something. They would want to reply again.

[Oleg]

A related issue (that might be more of a bug than related to this RFC): It is possible to send a PM to a user who is not permitted to use PMs at all (i.e. he cannot even read the PM).

There are multiple tickets open on this:

http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-8323
http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-10184
http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-10264

Please open a new discussion/RFC for this issue.

In general, the PM permissions list is probably a little (err, a lot) too granular. (Can delete private messages? WTF?)

Sounds like overkill to me too.

[naderman]

In general, the PM permissions list is probably a little (err, a lot) too granular. (Can delete private messages? WTF?)

Sounds like overkill to me too.

I'm all for removing this permission if we are adding a new one, to avoid making the list longer.

[Danielx64]

In general, the PM permissions list is probably a little (err, a lot) too granular. (Can delete private messages? WTF?)

Sounds like overkill to me too.

I'm all for removing this permission if we are adding a new one, to avoid making the list longer.

Yes, that a 99.9% setting that would never change (Can delete private messages? ) That a yes from me.

[imkingdavid]

So rather than all the hacky permission bypassing, we're going to add a new permission (u_pmreply or similar) and remove the unnecessary permissions, correct? Of course minor logic edits will still be needed but nothing as extensive as currently in the patch.

[Oleg]

A related issue (that might be more of a bug than related to this RFC): It is possible to send a PM to a user who is not permitted to use PMs at all (i.e. he cannot even read the PM).

There are multiple tickets open on this:

http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-8323
http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-10184
http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-10264

Please open a new discussion/RFC for this issue.

I thought about this some more and one way we can solve that issue is by adding an "Allow users to send PMs to users who can't read PMs" configuration setting.

However, if we allow users to always reply to PMs then we can't also prohibit users from sending PMs to users that can't reply to PMs, because there won't be any users who cannot reply to PMs (other than bots I suppose who can't login to reply to PMs).

Fresh topic on .com regarding replying to PMs: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=2145849

Possible solution: add another permission (I know, I know) for "sending PMs to users who can't read PMs", but unconditionally disallow sending PMs to bots since I don't see how that can ever be useful. Then by default admins can send PMs to everyone and newly registered users can reply to PMs.

Do we have separate permissions for reading and writing PMs? This is getting confusing. Here are the use cases I have so far:

1. User sends a PM.
2. User replies to a PM.
3. User is not allowed to create new PMs.
4. User is not allowed to create new PMs and is not allowed to reply to PMs.
5. User is not allowed to read or create PMs.
6. User is not allowed to read PMs but is allowed to create PMs. (??? - overkill?)
7. User sends a PM to a newly registered user. Newly registered user cannot read the PM until they get a minimum number of posts.
8. User sends a PM to a newly registered user. Newly registered user can read the PM but cannot reply to it until they get a minimum number of posts.
9. User sends a PM to a newly registered user. Newly registered user can read the PM and can reply to the PM, but cannot initiate own PMs.
10. User is not allowed to send PMs to newly registered users.
11. User sends a PM to a banned user. Banned user cannot read the PM until they are unbanned.
12. User sends a PM to a banned user. Banned user can read the PM but cannot reply to it until they are unbanned.
13. User sends a PM to a banned user. Banned user can read the PM and can reply to the PM, but cannot initiate own PMs until they are unbanned.
14. User is not allowed to send PMs to banned users.

The difference between minimum number of posts and unbanning is who performs the action. A newly registered user through their own actions can move themselves out of newly registered group. A banned user must wait for an admin to unban them.

[thetao]

How about adding a permission to reply to PMs instead of altering existing logic? I think this will be clearer and will take care of abuse in one go.

That's probably a better solution than all the hack-ish code I wrote up. But there would have to still be some added logic that ensures that the users can only reply to the original sender and no one else.

This gets my vote. One permission with a threshold for sending new PM's alongside another with a threshold for replies. Both would default to the same number for backward compatibility. BTW, I'm not a phpBB admin, but just ran into this problem on a poorly-configured board. I originally posted here http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... eb47c9a665 and was directed to this thread.

[imkingdavid]

I will be restarting work on this by going with adding a new permission instead of all the hackish logic I tried before.

Also, in response to this:

In general, the PM permissions list is probably a little (err, a lot) too granular. (Can delete private messages? WTF?)

Sounds like overkill to me too.

I'm all for removing this permission if we are adding a new one, to avoid making the list longer.

Here's an RFC

[imkingdavid]

So just to be clear, instead of always allowing the user to reply, I am implementing a permission to allow or disallow a user from replying to a PM? Is that correct or am I misunderstanding the suggestion?

[Danielx64]

I'm voting +1 to add a permission to allow users to reply to PMs.