# Askbot Project Documentation

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# User moderation in Askbot

Note

This is a draft specification

## Concepts

User status. The following user status levels are meaningful in askbot:

- administrator - user with moderation and administration privileges
- moderator - user with moderation privileges
- approved - user that can make full use of the forum
- watched - like approved user, except his/her contributions are not sent by email
- suspended - only can edit own existing posts and own profile, will see suspension message
- blocked - can’t do anything except send feedback, will see blocking message

These status levels are mutually exclusive.

Admin panel. Each user has a sub/view of his/her account giving tools.

Admin panel exposes moderation and administration tools. Note that there are some moderation tools located in other places (e.g. question views).

If a user can see own admin panel, the panel will always be restricted in function, because it never makes to communicate by email with him/herself, etc.

Moderation tools:

- change user status in range from blocked to approved
- arbitrarily add/subtract reputation and leave a message
- send PM to user
- merge tags (tags view, )
- merge questions (need special tool - sticky selection in search?)

Restrictions on moderators

- cannot moderate other moderators or admins, cannot access admin tools

Administration tools:

- edit user profiles
- change user status to moderators and remove it
- merge users
- delete accounts
- delete user contributions