Direct message & Anonymous Post

limi

For private reasons, I think it's necessary for a forum has function of Direct Message (Send private message between two users, or a 'thread' that only specific users can view) and Anonymous Post.
Although private tags can solve this. But it's really hard to say that it's suitable for the job.

jordanjay29

Yep, the private messaging issue is already being tracked. As for anonymous posting, are you talking about guest posting?

limi

jordanjay29 May be something alike but not exactly the same...My mean is a checkbox aside "post reply" button that let users post a Anonymous Post (Simply do not display username or assign the post to a "Public Hosting Account for Anonymous Post") without logging out. (since some forum asks users to login to view, logout-and-post is something impossible)

Kulga

limi I could see anonymous posting be useful - to write something that could have negative repercussions on the user in some way. I've seen this in use on other forums.

It should be pseudo anonymous though - available for admin / mods to see. Also should be linked to a actual account but concealed from normal viewers.

Mortiferr

If you do input an anonymous feature, I agree with what Kulga said, it should not be anonymous for administrators or moderators because this could allow people to cause trouble not under their own name.

FacundoLedesma

I hope I'm not breaking any forum rules bumping a thread this old, but I'm interested on the anonymous aspect mentioned by the OP. Is it possible to make an specific Tag to be completely anonymous for registered and non-registered users? It'd be cool to see this kind of feature in beta6/7, or maybe an extension.

jordanjay29

FacundoLedesma It's not terribly old, and still within one version of our current beta (we discourage bumping really old threads because they likely contain out-of-date information) so you're fine.

You could probably accomplish this by extension. Unless you wanted absolute anonymity for the posts (which would probably require a bit deeper coding), this could probably be accomplished by stripping the username information from the display in a certain tag. That would mean you could still move it to another tag and see the original posters, which might be ideal for some sites. True anonymity, where the poster information isn't recorded at all, would require some deeper coding.

meetdilip

Anonymous posts are not anonymous to admin in most software

AnthonyM

I would be interested in this. Would the framework support an extension to anonymize posting or would it have to be programmed into the core?

-Specifically;
Users register however their username is hidden from posts. So you can ban them if need be.
Replies are to post # or to 'OP' for 1st post.
Avatars could be replaced by category image/icon site-wide.
-avatars shown within category could be replaced by generic bullets or other spacer symbols.

I wonder if this could be an on/off feature of the board in a permission somewhere and that Registrations off could also be used in conjunction with it. The uses would be for political/news/classifieds/leak boards.

johnb

Hi, Is there an update on this subject?
I'm a Flarum virgin and very interested in using Flarum / Flarum Free for a forum situation where many participants work for competing companies. They are subject to regulators and wish to discuss issues and solutions around particular regulations without revealing their name and the company that they work for. Admin would still be able to see their details. Also, there will be some issues that they will be happy to use their real identity, so it's possible that some users will want two usernames.
1) Can this be done in Flarum?
2) I'm not a modern programmer, so if it requires some programming, are there Flarum experts who could do this?
3) If it can't be done in Flarum, can anyone suggest an alternative approach?

Thanks.

NFG

I assume no one's done anything with this since the topic was started? Certainly my searching didn't bring anything up.

I'd also like such a feature. I used to run a BBS back, back in the day, and we had several boards where people could post anonymously. Of course admins could see the source, but other users could not.

It's a great feature that allows people to say things without so much fear of repercussion (in my case, we had a sex talk forum and people are way more likely to be honest and open when they're not being judged). No modern software seems to allow this functionality.

I can't code worth a damn, but I'll cheerfully offer twenty bucks if anyone wants to get this done. =)

John-Theo

Any updates on the anonymous post feature?

tolgaaaltas

John-Theo https://extiverse.com/extension/dotronglong/flarum-hide-me

John-Theo

tolgaaaltas Not working in Flarum 0.1.0-beta.13

Illuminate \ Database \ QueryException (42S22)
SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'flarum_fof_terms_policy_user.anonymous_id' in 'field list' (SQL: select `flarum_fof_terms_policies`.*, `flarum_fof_terms_policy_user`.`anonymous_id` as `pivot_anonymous_id`, `flarum_fof_terms_policy_user`.`policy_id` as `pivot_policy_id`, `flarum_fof_terms_policy_user`.`accepted_at` as `pivot_accepted_at` from `flarum_fof_terms_policies` inner join `flarum_fof_terms_policy_user` on `flarum_fof_terms_policies`.`id` = `flarum_fof_terms_policy_user`.`policy_id` where `flarum_fof_terms_policy_user`.`anonymous_id` = -1)

EDIT: This error is probably caused by Flarum having their database structure changed. Hope this extension can keep up.

tolgaaaltas

John-Theo i'm not the developer of that extension. 🤷‍♂️ open an issue on GitHub.

Silverteal

Nothing updated?
Flarum Hide Me didn't work on beta 15

luceos

Silverteal there are a couple of direct message extensions and if I'm not mistaken @clarkwinkelmann gave anonymous posting a shot.

clarkwinkelmann

I developed anonymous posting for a client. It's very complicated because you need to decide exactly which features you will need and which extensions it will need to work with. Any change in the setup can break it. That's how difficult it is. There are multiple approaches and each approach has benefits and downsides, so I completely agreed with the client's wish to keep the code private as it's almost not reusable without a developer on hand to customize it to your use case.

Technically this could be made easier by making a series of changes in Flarum core, but it will be a lot of work which we probably won't attempt until after the first stable release.

jordanjay29

bopersty You can try out Help Tags which allows for semi-anonymous discussions (they are hidden except to the poster and specific groups who can see/reply).

Guest posting (fully anonymous users) has no extension, see clarkwinkelmann's description for why.

Bishwas-py

We too want this feature.

itschrislow

Would love to see this feature! As clark mentioned, it is very complicated but there could be a basec extension where posts and comments have the anonymous option though admins and mods can see.