History: Forum Admin

            ^Part of this page should be included in the Reference Guide and the rest in the Admin Guide^
! Forums Admin

!!Setup
!!!Admin Forums 
__To access__: Click the __Forums__ icon {icon name="admin_forums" size="2" title="Image may vary depending on icon set in use."}  on the ((Admin Panels|Admin Panel)) %%% or Access __http://example.org/tiki-admin.php?page=forums__

From this panel you can control which forum will be used as the Home forum, if rankings will be used or not for the forums and the default ordering for forums in the forum listing.

!!!Perms on forum posts and topics
!!!!Globally
From the admin groups screen you can set up the global permissions for the forums:
::{img src=http://tikiwiki.org/show_image.php?id=135}::
- to view a post, you need __tiki_p_forum_read__
- to post a topic, you need __tiki_p_forum_post_topic__
- to post a post (answer to a topic), you need __tiki_p_forum_post__
- to edit a topic or a post, you need __tiki_p_forum_post__ and to __be the author__
- to remove a topic or a post, you need __tiki_p_admin_forum__

Of course a __tiki_p_admin_forum__ or tiki_p_admin can do whatever he wants

!!!!Setting Individual permissions for a forum 
From the admin forums screen you can click on the  perms  link to set  up individual permissions for a forum.

::{img src=http://tikiwiki.org/show_image.php?id=133}::

Setting individual permissions can be used to have private forums, to control who can post new topics in some special forums, to give admin privileges to a group of user only for some forums, etc. As usual when individual permissions are set for a forum global permissions don't apply. 

!!!Importing forums from an external source
-=Available beginning in 1.10.0 (and 1.9.8.3 CVS)=-

Another option available from the Admin forums page is that of __Import forums__.  The purpose of this tool is to migrate forum contents from another site into your Tiki forums.  Currently, only importation of another Tiki forum is supported.  ''It is recommended that you back-up your database before performing this import.''

Currently, the only import method supported is to import a forum from the contents of an SQL text dump of a database.  The only SQL file dump currently tested was from a MySQL database.

Upon selecting the Import forums option, you will be prompted to provide information on the identity and location of the source SQL file.  For the importer to work properly, the SQL file __must__ exist in either ''tikiroot/temp/filename.sql'' or ''tikiroot/img/wiki_up''.

{img src="img/wiki_up/fi1.png" }

Fill in the necessary information and click Get Forum List.  This will then verify that the file can be located and tell you either way: if not found, you may go back to the first screen, otherwise proceed.  If allowed to proceed, the tool will parse the SQL file you specified and pull a list of forums it found for you to select from.  It will also pull a list of forums from your Tiki site and present them for you to select a destination:

{img src="img/wiki_up/fi2.png" }

You may only select __one source__ forum and __one destination__ forum.  Basically, you can only migrate one forum at a time.  This is mainly for performance reasons.  The larger the SQL file, the longer the migration will take and the more memory it takes up.  To migrate more than one forum at a time would tax most Tiki install environments.

Once you have selected your source and destination forums, click on Import Forum.

!!!!Length of time to import a forum
Again, depending on the size of the SQL file, this may take a few minutes to process.  Some installations may encounter an error when you first run the tool because __php.ini__ has the following set:

::max_execution_time = 30::

This parameter means the longest a php script can run is 30 seconds.  Through trial and error, for importing forums from an SQL file in the neighborhood of 10Mb, use a max_execution_time of __100__.  Recently, the Workflow site imported 300 posts from a dump of the tikiwiki.org site; the SQL file for that was 1.3Gb, and execution took less than __180__ seconds.  If you have the ability to temporarily configure this setting, I would recommend:

::max_execution_time = 200::

then finish your imports, and reset it back to 30.

!!!!What gets imported?
Once the import is complete, you will be advised how many actual posts were imported into the new forum.

The importing of forum posts actually appends the old posts to the current comments table, so each post gets a new thread id.  Each thread is then recalculated so that replies in the same thread are still associated with each other.

Datestamps are retained, so posts imported will show up with their original post date, and will not appear as new posts.

Usernames are retained as the sender of the post, however the user account doesn't necessarily have to exist on the new server.

Most other data associated with the post record that appears in the comments table is also retained.

!!!!What does not get imported?
Attachments are not imported.  If there was an attachment to a post, there may be an empty reference to the attachment, but the actual attachment does not get imported.

Posts that were made but are awaiting on moderator approval will not be imported.

If a forum was reported, that gets ignored in the import.

!!Management
!!!Admin forums
::{img src=http://tikiwiki.org/show_image.php?id=128}::

!!!Creating/editing forums
The admin forums screen shows a list of available forums and a form to create/edit a new forum.  Following is a breadown of each option:

||Name| The forum name as it will be displayed in the forum listing
Description| A description for the forum
Prevent flooding| Requires users to wait the specified time between posts. This can be used to prevent a user from flooding the forum with messages/posts.
Topics per page| The number of threads/topics that will be displayed in one page when listing the forum threads/topics.
Section| Forums can be organized into sections, you can assign an existing section to a forum, create a new section or don't use a section. When listing forums they will be grouped by section.
Moderator user | Defines a single user to be set as forum moderator. When a user is set as moderator he/she will be granted all the permissions for this forum.
Moderator group | Same as ''Moderator user'' but this time for a whole usergroup.
Default ordering for topics | Specifies how threads/topics will be orderded in the thread list by default. Options are: ''Date:'' Creation date of the topic; ''Replies:'' Number of replies (messages) the topic has; ''Reads:'' Number of times the topic has been read; ''Last post:'' Date of the last post in the topic. (the last message posted); ''Title:'' topic title.
Default ordering for messages | Determines how messages/posts of a thread/topic will be ordered by default when viewing an individual thread/topic. The options are: ''Date:'' message date; ''Title:'' message title; ''Score:'' Message score.
Send this forum posts to this email | You can configure an email address that will receive all the topics and messages posted to the forum
Prune unreplied messages after | If enabled threads/topics that do not have any replies will be automatically removed after the amount of time indicated
Prune old messages after | If enabled threads/topics and posts/messages will be automatically removed when they are older than the indicated amount of time .
Topic list configuration| Specifies which thread/topic properties should be displayed when viewing the thread list
Threads can be voted | Allows users to vote on a thread by assigning points from 1 to 5
Forward messages to this forum to this email | Allows you to have all new messages in a forum to be copied by email to the specified email address
Add messages from this email to this forum | This option configures the so-called __mail-in__ feature that allows anyone to post a message on the forum by means of sending an email with the desired post content to the specified email address. It is required to have a valid POP3 mail account on a server from which Tiki can check and retrieve the email messages. By specifying the username and password for the email account all messages will be downloaded automagically. 
Use topic smileys | Allows you to specify a smiley when posting a new thread or topic
Show topic summary | Displays the short description underneath the thread/topic title of the thread/topic summary
User information display | Specifies which user details should be shown when viewing a thread
Approval type | Specifies whether or not you wish to work with a __moderator queue__. By selecting ''All posted'' no approval is required. When selecting ''Queue anynomous posts'' only posts from non forum members will be queued for approval. Finally when opting for ''Queue all posts'' any new posts in the forum will not be displayed until it has been approved.
Attachment | Specifies whether you want to allow users posting attachments with their posts/messages and whether these should be stored in the Tiki database or on the local file system. By defining a ''max attachment size'' you can avoid users from posting attachments that are larger than the specified threshold. ||

Once a forum is created you can see it displayed in the listing at the bottom of the Admin forum page:

::{img src=http://tikiwiki.org/show_image.php?id=129}::

The edit link can be used to edit the forum while the perms link can be used to set-up individual permissions for the forum.

!!! User Ratings on Forums
To set it up:
* Create or Edit a forum and enable: "__Posts can be rated__"
* While editing the forum, choose whether to show the "User information display > __Topic Rating__" by each user (Tiki13+)
* Set the rating options at "Admin Home" > Ratings" > "Comments" > "Simple wiki comment ratings" > "__Wiki rating options:__" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5; or less/more options than those)

Ensure that you granted to your desired group/s the permission to vote, and view the rating results.
* forums > tiki_p_forum_vote
* tiki > tiki_p_ratings_view_results

Example of the thread list in a forum, showing results for the first message of every thread (thread topic), with detailed results and rating smileys both enabled.

{img src="display975" link="display975" width="400" rel="box[g]" imalign="center" desc="Click to expand" align="center" styleimage="border"}

If we visit one of those threads of that forum, we can see that the rating shown in the threads list corresponds to the rating of the thread topic (first message of the thread). Replies to that topic can also be rated by users. 

{img src="display976" link="display976" width="400" rel="box[g]" imalign="center" desc="Click to expand" align="center" styleimage="border"}


Since ((Tiki13)), there is a new forum setting to allow the optional display of the Rating by each user to that forum thread topic in each reply. 

Useful to ease the task to reach consensus on deliberations (in forum threads) by identifying in a more clear way the position (topic rating) of each person on that topic at each moment on the discussion. 

{img src="display987" link="display987" width="400" rel="box[g]" imalign="center" desc="Click to expand" align="center" styleimage="border"}

!!!Forum moderation 
The user/s defined as moderator/s (see the forum options "moderator user" or "moderator group" above) have some extra set of actions that can be performed on the forum topics, or on forum posts when approval is required before listing posts (see "Moderation queue" below). 

::{img src="img/wiki_up/Forum_moderator_actions.png" }::
|| __Icon__| __Description__
{img src=img/icons/topic_move.gif }|move selected topics (to another forum)
{img src=img/icons/topic_unlock.gif }|unlock selected topics
{img src=img/icons/topic_lock.gif }|lock selected topics
{img src=img/icons/topic_delete.gif }|delete selected topics
{img src=img/icons/topic_split.gif }|merge selected topics
||

!!!! Moderation queue
A __forum moderation queue__ can be defined through the forum option "__Approval type__": 
* By selecting "__All posted__", no approval is required. 
* When selecting "__Queue anynomous posts__", only posts from non forum members will be queued for approval. 
* Finally when opting for "__Queue all posts__" any new posts in the forum will not be displayed until it has been approved.

Therefore, when the queue is set, forum moderators will have to approve those forum posts before they are publicly readable in the forum.
!! Interesting links
*((Forum and Mailing List Synchronization))
*((Forum Details))
See all related links on the ((forum)) page.