Documentation
3.6. Group Management
Usergroups are a way of grouping users. This makes it easier to set permissions to many people at the same time. phpBB 3.0 has six pre-defined groups: Administrators, Bots, Global Moderators, Guests, Registered Users, and Registered COPPA Users.
3.6.1. Group types
There are two types of groups:
- Pre-defined groups
These are groups that are available by default in phpBB 3.0. You cannot delete them, as the board needs them for various features. You can still change their attributes (description, colour, rank, avatar, and so forth) and group leaders. Users that register to your board are automatically added to the predefined group "Registered Users", for instance. Do not try to remove them manually through the database, or your board will no longer function properly.
- Administrators
This usergroup contains all of the administrators on your board. All founders are administrators, but not all administrators are founders. You can control what administrators can do by managing this group.
- Bots
This usergroup is meant for search engine bots. phpBB 3.0 has the ability to overcome the common problems that search engine spiders encounter when spidering your board. For more information on managing settings for each bot, see the Spiders and Bots section.
- Global Moderators
Global moderators are moderators that have moderator permissions for every forum in your board. You can edit what permissions these moderators have by managing this group.
- Guests
Guests are visitors to your board who aren't logged in. You can limit what guests can do by managing this usergroup.
- Registered Users
Registered users are a big part of your board. Registered users have already registered on your board. To control what registered users can do, manage this usergroup.
- Registered COPPA Users
Registered COPPA users are basically the same as registered users, except that they fall under the COPPA, or Child Online Privacy Protection Act, law, meaning that they are under the age of 18 in the U.S.A. Managing the permissions this usergroup has is important in protecting these users. COPPA doesn't apply to users living outside of the U.S.A.
- User defined groups
The groups you create by yourself are called "User defined groups". These groups are similar to groups in 2.0. You may create as many as you want, remove them, set group leaders, and change their attributes (description, colour, rank, avatar, and so forth).
The section in the ACP shows you separated lists of both your "User defined groups" and the "Pre-defined groups".
3.6.2. Group attributes
A list of attributes a group can have:
- Group name
The name of your group.
- Group description
The description of the group that will be displayed on the group overview list..
- Display group in legend:
This will enable the display of the name of the group in the legend of the "Who is Online" list. Note, that this will only make sense if you specified a colour for the group.
- Group able to receive private messages
This will allow the sending of Private Messages to this group. Please note, that it can be dangerous to allow this for Registered Users, for instance. There is no permission to deny the sending to groups, so anyone who is able to send Private Messages will be able to send a message to this group!
- Group private message limit per folder
This setting overrides the per-user folder message limit. A value of 0 means the user default limit will be used.
- Group colour
The name of members that have this group as their default group (see Section 3.6.3, “Default groups”) will be displayed in this colour on all forum pages. If you enable Display group in legend, an legend entry with the same colour will appear below the "Who is Online" listing.
- Group rank
A member that has this group as the default group (see Section 3.6.3, “Default groups”) will have this rank below his username. Note, that you can change the rank of this member to a different one that overrides the group setting.
- Group avatar
A member that has this group as the default group (see Section 3.6.3, “Default groups”) will use this avatar. Note, that a member can change his avatar to a different one, if he has the permission to do so.
3.6.3. Default groups
As it is now possible to assign attributes like colours or avatars to groups (see Section 3.6.2, “Group attributes”, it can happen that a user is a member of two or more different groups that have different avatars or other attributes. So, which avatar will the user now inherit?
To overcome this problem, you are able to assign each user exactly one "Default group". The user will only inherit the attributes of this group. Note, that it is not possible to mix attributes: If one group has a rank but no avatar, and another group has only a avatar, it is not possible to display the avatar from one group and the rank from the other group. You have to decide for one "Default group".
Important
Default groups have no influence on permissions. There is no added permissions bonus for your default group, so a user's permissions will stay the same, no matter what group is his default one.
You can change default groups in two ways. Either through the user management (see Section 3.5, “Users Management”) or directly through the groups management (Manage groups). Please be careful with the second option, as when you change the default group through a group directly, this will change the default group for all its group members and overwrite their old default groups. So, if you change the default group for the "Registered Users" group by using the Default link, all members of your forum will have this group as their default one, even members of the Administrators and Moderators groups as they are also members of "Registered Users".
Important
If you make a group the default one that has a rank and avatar set, the user's old avatar and rank will be overwritten by the group.
