Allow posting comments but not starting new topics

Actually, this was the behavior we had in D5, and many of us saw the inability to control comments as a missing feature. We added it in #310254: Control posting rights for comments/replies in D5 for D6 (and it proves difficult to backport it to D5), but I see now that the old behavior was useful, too.

I'm not so eager to add more columns — maybe just a global switch?

I need this also for a site updates/polls/news forum section that only moderators/admins can post in, but users need to be able to comment on the posts.

A global switch would be ok in my case, I think. I don't really have any need to restrict both commenting and posting nodes. Couldn't say for anyone else. <_<

I want that future too, but in specific forums, not whole the forum :(
(etc at the forum "announcements, but not at the forum "ask for help" )

I have implemented 'Drupal 5 legacy mode' to allow a smooth upgrade from Drupal 5; see #552636: Forum post vs. reply not functioning correctly.

I'm still undecided whether to offer this for individual forums (i.e. a checkbox per forum) or even for specific roles (i.e. splitting the Post column in two).

If we split Post, will we have to split Edit and Delete, too?

Anyone posting actual nodes there would be a moderator already, and already have edit or delete privileges, correct? Only the ability to add comments are being changed I thought. Maybe I don't understand. <_<

highvoltage: I'm confused by what you write. People can be moderators (with all rights), they can have Post rights, Edit rights, and Delete rights. That's all completely independent. In D6 mode, comments are treated like posts, in D5 legacy mode they're unaffected by Forum Access.

There's no distinction between creating a node and posting a comment in the permissions?

Exactly. This is what it says when you open the 'Permissions information' fieldset. Both need Post and their respective Drupal permissions.

So is there any solution to overcome this problem, without hacking around?

See #4 above.

Thanks salvis.

I think we should split the create a new topic and create a new comment, because they are two different things on drupal. Each one with its own settings. So we have to think them as separate. And of course i think it must be per role for all the forums.

I dont think to split edit or delete, because if someone has the permission to moderate content, he/she should moderate both topics and posts. Because a topic with its comments it is one logical entity. If i have the permission to edit/delete a node, i want to have the permission to edit/delete its comments too.

apanag

Hello,

do we have any updates about spliting the permissions?

Thank you,
apanag

No, do you want to work on it?

I am going to try a few things, but i ll have a deadline for a project at 2/10. So until then. i am going to code as much as possible.
Firstly i am going to read your code and try to figure out what happens in it.

I personally would like to see this implemented to be configurable both on a per-role basis and on a per forum basis. The 'Announcement' scenario is exactly what I'm looking for (#3 above). I don't see it being necessary to split Edit and Delete, for my purposes at least, but I suppose to could be implemented for completeness.

I'm thinking things over and I think I may go with the Node Comment module so that I can have comments with CCK fields and permissions. This will make my need for this feature moot, since I would need to use the Taxonomy Access Control module to do what I need to do.

Adding Node Comment support to FA is another item on my list...