Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

The phpBB forum software includes hundreds of different variable settings, controlling posting and user permissions.
Higher levels are only accessible by Administrators and Moderators via their respective control panels (ACP and MCP). Evidently I've still got a lot to learn about them.

Over the last 24 hours or so, I've started selectively inviting a few members to join the forum. As per my posts in the
Rules and Guidelines for using this forum and How to edit your member profile threads, elsewhere in this section, I'm requesting that all new members add their location to their profile, as soon as they've registered, as a condition of membership. (It was a requirement on the old forum). So far, nobody has complied with that request.

To do so, you need to edit your profile (per the screenshot from that second thread):


This morning, a newly joined member informed me that he was unable to do so, because his UCP (User Control Panel) wasn't allowing him to, because it didn't actually have an edit profile option. The button was completely missing !!


Needless to say we're urgently looking into it. As far as I can tell, everything looks OK on the respective ACP screen:

More by luck than judgement, I think I've found the cause of the problem. If I'm correct in my assumptions, I suspect it's actually related to user permissions. Again another different cluster of variable settings on the ACP.

Right now, the 5 bona fide members, who've signed up recently, are grouped under the Newly registered users table.


Amongst other board settings, I've discovered that one of the qualifications required of a member, to enable them to progress from being a 'Newly registered user', to becoming a normal 'Registered user' isn't any particular time period, but only after having made 3 posts on the forum ! Hence the reason why the spammer who managed to rack up 23 posts, two hours after the forum went live, was showing as a registered user (before I deleted them).

Different levels of membership have different capabilities and permission settings:


Unfortunately, the way user permissions are defined in phpBB, newly registered users have their own unique and slightly lower level of permissions, which doesn't allow them to edit (or even see) their profile information !!


As a temporary workaround, I've given the 5 new members 'Standard Features', which hopefully should do the trick.

It didn't quite work as planned, but after a bit of frigging around, thanks to the help of newest forum member Finn (Uhrige7A), I think I can confidently state that the problem, the forum's first little glitch, is hopefully now resolved.

While I was looking around the ACP this morning, checking the forum's profile location settings, I accidently stumbled across this screen and quickly took this screenshot before navigating away. Note the two arrowed unchecked boxes:


It took me a while to find it again, but now the previous issue is fixed, I've decided to chuck a spanner in the works.


Anybody trying to edit their profile will now be automatically required to add their location. Not only that, but it also becomes a mandatory requirement for registration. Hopefully it'll prove to be an effective anti-SPAM countermeasure.