Support Forums: New role to view/add user notes

[zoonini]

Currently, user notes on forum profiles often include information that's very relevant to the work of plugin review team members, but they are unable to see them without Moderator status.

It would also be very useful for them to be able to *add* user notes that others can see.

It would be ideal to have another role that allows people to view and leave user notes, without also having all the other moderator capabilities.

[Clorith]

We should extend the user notes to account for this, replacing the current capability check (looking for the moderator capability), with a more flexible one, such as can_view_user_notes and can_create_user_notes (or similar)

[zoonini]

As it turns out, user notes are already pulled into two locations useful for plugin reviewers:

• Help Scout
• Plugin dashboard

If it turns out that additional access is needed in the future, I will reopen this ticket or make a new one. Closing this in the meantime.

[mrfoxtalbot]

Thank you for checking and for updating the ticket, @zoonini. Having the notes available in HelpScout and the Plugin dashboard is handy but does not fix the "adding notes" part of the ticket.

On the other hand, I am wondering if we should simplify things and just give plugin reviewers moderators access (even if they are only going to be using it to add notes). I feel that if someone is part of the Plugin Review team, we should be able to trust them.

Should we let this go, leave this ticket closed and go with the simpler "make them mods" option?

[dd32]

Should we let this go, leave this ticket closed and go with the simpler "make them mods" option?

FWIW while I generally discourage mixing permissions, I feel that this is the likely outcome here.

As long as the plugins team remains a relatively small team of trusted people, having moderator access to the forums is a small increase in access, and simpler for all.

[mrfoxtalbot]

Yes, let's keep things simple and just make plugin reviewers moderators. Besides, once 5552 is fixed, moderators will can be shown as "regular" users by default.

[jillwilliams2]

If at all possible, the plugin team members shouldn’t have moderator access. Both roles have a fair bit of power and currently there is a decided lack of appropriate oversight of that power for either role. Combining them creates additional ability for that power to be misused or abused. That isn’t a theoretical issue, as plugin team members have misused their moderator access to delete and shutdown community discussions trying to address problems with the activity of the plugin team in the past.

If they do need that moderator access, please make sure there is an oversight mechanism put in place for both roles to better check the ability for that power to be misused or abused.