Private board?

[SemaviLady]

If you have to wait a certain # of months then someone who is a weirdo can just wait until their account is old enough and just go on the private board without caring about anything else on the forum such as pictures, debates, and general forums. If you have to wait till you have a certain # of posts, well I don't think that would be fair, because as buckner pointed out, some TRUSTED people don't post as much and such.

Actually, PHP boards can be managed to allow certain hidden forums to have handpicked members.

In other words it need not be automated by the following criteria:
1) A certain number of posts or
2) age of the PT member's account.

It can be done by election which can be arranged according to chosen design.

For example, think of moderators and members the same way: Admins generally hand pick their moderators. By Administrative decree, not all moderators necessarily ever see all the chats on a board and some mods sometimes only get to moderate one chat, none of the others. Mods see extra 'buttons' to edit or manage each posting and regular chat member's postings in THEIR own modding area. But not in others.

Extending the example, we could call this special chat area the "PT-Family" forum. Newbies logging in have no idea that the forum exists unless they pick up hints or it is broadcasted somewhere. They simply cannot join the "PT-Family" GROUP until they have earned it and been elected into the group.

Some of the regular mods may not have access to PT-Family forum! Nor even know that it exists.

The Admin could select a couple mods, specifically for the PT-Family forum. These two or three mods (3 - so votes can have a majority) can elect to allow certain chat members to be admitted into the PT-Family area. This way friendly lurkers, the great old timers, certain likeable PT people that show up at real life PT-inspired regional playdates and other select folk can voted into to the hidden "PT-Family" GROUP. A code of ethics could be set up so that members of the group help maintain the high caliber of the "PT-Family" forum.

Security... If the mods think that an account has been hacked, they can delete the posts and arrange to have the account banned from the forum til the real owner comes back with a more secure set up.

It's very flexible. But it does depend on the alpha-admins to decide if it will be created and who will be the administrator for that group. It could be an administrative headache.

We do have to be realistic. Nothing is ever really secure. What about sheer numbers? What if there are 150 members of the "PT-Family" GROUP - maybe 300 members? Do you really trust that many virtual people?

Hope this isn't confusing.

[Kalei]

What if you had a private board where you could put a thread up but only the people on your buddy list could see?

I wonder what Karen thinks about a private forum?

[KittyGurl]

What if you had a private board where you could put a thread up but only the people on your buddy list could see?

Thats a good idea, but most of the people on my buddy list never come on. Only two people on my buddy list come on. This could also be bad too. A wacked up person could just let everyone on their buddy list and you won't even know! They could have every single member on their buddy list.
On another forum I'm in, if you want to put someone on your buddy list, the admin sends a request saying "bla bla wants to be your buddy. Do you accept?" If you accept then they are added to your buddy list.