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I hope you bear with me and my questions, but starting with such a new forum, creates a lot of open questions at the start. This will become less in the future, I am sure. 😉
I have a question of understanding.
To explain:
I understand, that SP is linked to the WP User System, so whenever a user becomes a WP user, SP is creating a new forum user. What I can control via access rights, is what status the new WP user gets - from "Guest" to "Moderator" or whatever user status I create.
My problem is, I have a lot of bogus registrations, as most blogs. But some of the registrations, later become a valued customer. But *all* users of the forum, are behind a paywall, so the real users of the forum, are only those with a status above "just registered".
Unfortunately, every new "bogus" user registered at WP, is counted and shown in the SP statistics as user, although he has no and will have no right, to even view the forum.
And every bogus user has unfortunately a userprofile created and is part of the member information list in the options panel.
I tried and was able to redirect those "just registered" to a Guest-Status only in the forum. But even as guest, they seem to be counted and are part of the member list.
What I am looking for is a way, to get rid of all those registered users as member of the forum, *without* deleting them from WP as a user.
I am aware, that I am in fact asking for breaking the parallelity between the WP and SP user count. What I am looking for, is to have only a *defined subset" of the WP users created as SP users (with whatever status i define).
Any idea? Maybe there is already a solution I am simply not aware off?
Thanks!
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I will throw this one open as @mr-papa may well have some ideas I don;t have and he will probably be around later. But - if this was me I would look at this from the other side and put some controls in place regarding registration.
Maybe with a two stage process or some sort of membership plugin. Even simple plugins like 'Theme My Login' can, I believe, be set up to send an email to confirm the process so at least you know it is a genuine person with a genuine email address. keeps things clean, tidy and uncluttered by junk users.
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YELLOW
SWORDFISH
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Hi Yellow Swordfish,
thanks, but I understand this and do this already. My Setup is different from most.
Let me try to explain, obviously I was not able to make my point.
My blog has a free zone, where everybody can register. But this zone has *no access to forum* and will never have any.
Sure I filter the bogus registrations from the real ones. It is a process, I do with a mix of what you propose and with individual selection from myself.
So in the end, I have a registered userbase, that consist of real people. Fine. But that is not my problem, I have that user base already.
The point is: All those "real" people, dont have immediate access to forum and will not have one, if they dont become (paying) community member.
The (internal) forum is exclusive to those behind the paywall. Only those - after enrolling for membership - get access to the valuable content, the community forum is part of it.
So dont see this forum as a method to attract everyone. It is a premium service for those, that are paying members. And this ensures the very high quality of the discussions and the content. The forum is a "closed shop" for members, secured by the S2 Members plugin.
I hope I was able to clarify.
Now try to think this through from my perspective.
I have an exclusive forum for an exclusive community. And all I want is, that the forum statistics only shows those, that are users of the forum. Again, all others "just registered" on the blog, cant even see, that a forum exists, because S2 Members prevents access.
And I cant just delete all "just registered" users, because being registered, is the first step becoming a full community member. You could say, the free zone of the blog is my "marketing area" to convert those to members.
You have here at SP a similar setup, if you think of removing the ability of "non-members" to access the forum at all. Think of a case, where only paying members can see the forum. Then you are in my boat.
What I dont want - and what you wouldnt want in this case - is, having statistics with bogus numbers. Having the username of every bot registered below in your "newest member list".
For my setup, this "newest member list" is simple unusable. What I need is a list of those, that truely got access to the forum. Just being registered or a guest isnt enough.
And I dont want a memberlist, that is crowded with thousand free users, that are *not* members of the forum.
The simplest way to ensure this, would be to remove all those from the forum member list. I could easily do it, with your current infrastructure, because I would redirect a Wordpress "Subscriber" to a "No Forum Access" Status.
Unfortunately - and *that* is my point - there seems to be no "No Forum Access" Status. Just "Guest" as the lowest rank.
So making a long explanation short, what I am basically looking for is a forum status, that is below guest, that says "not allowed", which means:
-> This wordpress member does *not* count for statistics and does *not* show up in the newest member list.
This member is still a wordpress member, but no SP user/member.
I hope i made my point?
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Trying to make the complicated subject simple:
If I understand your user rights systems correctly (I am not 100% sure), in your system:
-> a member with "no access" rights at all, is still a forum member, counts as a forum member and shows up in the "newest member list" and the "member list" as a forum member.
What I am lookin for is a way to ensure that:
-> a member with "no access" rights at all, is *NO* forum member, and does not count and does not show up with its user name.
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Well as I said earlier my colleague may have some ideas regarding your specific question but I just wanted to clarify one thing.
There is no such thing as a 'forum member'. All there are are users who sign up for the website. Simple:Press is a WordPress plugin and as such we leave WordPress to control users and that is the pool with which we work.
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YELLOW
SWORDFISH
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Thanks, I am fully aware of this. I tried to start my inital question with this statement, as I expected this missunderstanding of my intend.
Still there seems to be no mandatory reason to me, why a member with zero access rights to the forum, must show up in the forum. It can be implemented that way, but must not mandatory.
Call it a "filter", that filters those from being displayed in the forum, that have no access right to the forum at all.
Or call it a "No Access" Status in the forum, that doesnt count those with the status.
Whatever name you give it, those are still "members" in terms of wordpress. For the forum, they are "non existent".
I fully understand - or at least expected from what I have seen so far - that such "filter" is not part of your current functionality. If thats true, I must and will live with it.
But maybe you or Mr Papa have an idea, how to "filter" those with no access within you current system.
Again, you have the perfect infrastructure to do this. In the logic of your system, it would only need an addition to the user rights. An addition, that allows to exclude certain members from statistics and user lists, so that they doesnt show up in the forum at all.
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you mention filter.. we do provide filters on the statistics... so you could filter them and change the answers as you desire... unfortunately, on travel right now and cannot look up the filter, but if interested, @yellow-swordfish should be able to provide...
Visit Cruise Talk Central and Mr Papa's World
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I guess my request above was forgotten, but now I am confronted with the problem again.
The question is simple:
Where and how can I filter certain users from the statistic? Mr Papa mentioned the option, but I cant find any.
I need to filter all those out of the statistics, that are registered as "subscriber" from a wordpress perspective, but have no forum access at all yet. In my logic, one needs to explicitly enrol for forum activity *after" being registered via wordpress. Those that have no access, must be excluded from the statistics.
Thanks!
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multiple ways to skin that cat, I think... still not exactly sure what you want to do, but for most of the stats, you can alter the query that generates the data...
for example, see function sp_get_membership_stats() where we grab the membership stats... there are filter for sph_stats_admin_count_query, sph_stats_mod_count_query, sph_stats_members_count_query, and sph_stats_guests_count_query...
Or for top posters, there is sp_get_top_poster_stats() and filter sph_stats_top_posters_query...
for admin and moderator stats, in functions sp_get_moderator_stats() and sp_get_admin_stats(), there are filters sph_stats_mod_stats_query and sph_stats_admin_stats_query...
or if you prefer to handle at display time, you can use filters to remove data then... for example
forum stats in function sp_ForumStats() use filter sph_ForumStats, or membership stats in function sp_MembershipStats() use filter sph_MembershipStats, or top poster stats in function sp_TopPostersStats() use filter sph_TopStats, or for newest members in function sp_NewMembers() use filter sph_NewMembers...
hope that helps... just ask if you need more info or have additional questions on this...
Visit Cruise Talk Central and Mr Papa's World
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MrPapa, thanks! Unfortunately, as this is the only area, where I would need customization via template - everything else in SP is fine enough for my needs - it doesnt make sense for me, to invest time in the learning curve of individual template scripting for SP.
But I still have the feeling, that I was unsuccesfull to bring the point of my request over to you.
Instead of again explaining lengthy the "whys" and "causes" as I tried above, I will now try the other way and simple tell you as a proposal, what I would very much like to have in a future version of simple:press.
You have the concept of user groups and it is a powerfull concept.
What I wish as enhancement, is an Option (a checkmark) for a User Group that defines, that members of this usergroup *do not count on the statistics*. So I want to be able to exclude specific usergroups from the statistics.
Why do I have this request? (The explanation afterwards ;))
Because a registered Member in Terms of Wordpress (Subscriber) is not necessarily a Forum User in my logic. To gain access to the forum, on my Installation one needs to do something else (in fact paying) that qualifies this "Wordpress Subscriber" as a true person.
Today, I map all of the Wordpress Role "Subscriber" to "Guest" in Terms of SP. In addition I have an Access Class in SP that is called "No Access" and defines exactly that: no access at all to the forum.
With this method, only those that qualify further, gain a higher SP role as "guest with zero access"
Unfortunately, all others - all the bots registering at Wordpress, but also those that never become a customer - still count in the statistics and show up with their names as "New Members".
I believe you have the same scenario/problem here. When I look into your statistics I sometimes see under "new members" some of those bot-generated names, that are so typical for non-human spam. For your scenario this might be OK, because in theory they have access to the free forum of SP.
But in my case, they have no access at all. Because of S2 Members, they even cant see the forum page in general.
So my forum is completly unvisible for those that do not qualify. Unfortunately in the statistics they show up, because there is no way to exclude a specific usergroup from the statistics.
I believe such an option would be a powerfull enhancement to configure the statistics to the individual needs. It could be used to display specific userclasses in the stats and in my case it would be used to exclude those, that have no access at all to the forum. I guess many of your customers using membership Plugins as S2 Members, will have similar requirements.
I hope I was able to bring my point over.
This is just a proposal. Think about it. If you say you will not implement something like that, I will live with it as is and tell my forum members to ignore all this counts and member names, as they are not valid.
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