Re: permissions

1.0's permissions were quite sane. So were 1.1's. But users said they were too complicated having that 'classic' view so the 'simple' view was introduced. And, just for fun, the process was changed from per board permissions to board profiles because per-board permissions were 'too complicated' to use when you had a site with a lot of boards but only a few sets of permissions. Sort of like here really. Hence board profiles.

Is it ideal? No. Neither was per-board permissions either. And there have been various suggestions over the years about how to fix all of this, but all of them have, to my knowledge, been ignored. 2.1 would have been the ideal time to fix things.

You'll notice there is a direct parallel between what I'm saying here and what was said elsewhere about users getting what they asked for and why this is not necessarily a good idea.

Post moderation is a mess because it was implemented in the quickest possible way: new permissions and simple checks around those permissions. Made it quite fast, too. But awkward to use. Only it's taken years for the idea of 'this isn't actually sane' to get through to people.

I recognise what the docs team is trying to do here. I'm trying to ensure that it doesn't stop several stops too early down the line. To get people to work as a team by getting specialists in one area to talk to specialists in another area instead of siloing skills together. If the docs team are seeing a clusterf*** to document, it's a problem that no amount of doc writing can fix, and so it should only ever be an interim thing.

The number of WTFs across SMF is staggering if you actually take the time to view it with fresh eyes. I guess also it's validating everything said elsewhere about a lack of trust. Because I've seen what the lack of trust has been building. To a point I'm not even sure they're wrong to distrust devs building what's needed any more, much as I *personally* would be building something sane, I'm only too aware of the history.

In 2.1 there is a new option to deny access to boards. Except you have to turn it on first. And it's not in the same screen, nor is it shown on the board configuration screen that it's even an option. You specifically have to go to the boards and categories > settings page first where you set up a recycle board to change that one.

Another hilarity is newsletters. Want to send a newsletter to a post count group? You can't. At least, not unless you have post-count groups having permissions turned on. Yes, seriously. In order to send a mailing to a group of users based on post counts, you have to turn on a setting in a totally different area of the admin panel, with a totally unrelated function attached.

The fact it takes fresh eyes, years after building it, to see it is worrying. We're all so blinded to it because we're so used to it that it takes fresh eyes to see where it's broken, and even less chance of doing something about it.