Administrators -- How much access?

[Cosmic]

Hey!

I'm creating this topic to ask how much you guys think that an administrator, or moderator for that matter, should get on your site. I am not asking what powers they have on any sites you own, rather what you think the optimal permissions for each level is. Here are some things which some people may or may not offer their administrators / moderators. Again, this is not meant to pry into your forum's styaff-only information, rather just to see what you, theoretically, think is the best combination of permissions for any forums other than your own to use which acknowledges security, trust, and efficiency.

ADMINISTRATORS
cPanel access.
FTP access.
Template / style management
Board general settings updating
Database / system management
Logs deletion / viewing
admin permission editing
founder access (root admin for other softwares)
IP bans
PM viewing
Mass emailing


Also, for moderators:


MODERATORS
Deletion (I mean real deletion, not just trash / unapproval
Permanent banning
IP banning
Mass moderation (dealing with multiple threads at once)
Stickying
Global announcement posting


Finally, one last time, please give theoretical answers and suggestions as to what other people should do. This is not asking your own forum's permissions.

 

[Nebulous]

Im the only one with cPanel access. Its always been that way with forums Ive ran... Not saying I dont trust my fellow admins, there is just no point to give them access.
My fellow admins have always had an FTP account though.

 

[Cosmic]

I was considering the pros and cons of giving admins FTP accounts, one reason why I made this thread. 😉 cPanel is a bit dangerous, yeah.

 

[Nebulous]

Well if you hire an administrator to administrate the forums, they they dont need access to any of the extras. If they are helping you do updates / maintain things, then yeah give them what the need to have to get that job done.
Either way, keep a backup of everything on your computer incase you did get a "bad egg" admin that tries to screw you over.

 

[Bossanova]

If you're going to trust someone enough to make them an Admin, the they deserve full powers.

 

[Nebulous]

Why give them access to the cpanel and whatnot if they dont need it?
They were hired as forum admins. Not hosting account managers. 😛

 

[Bluezone777]

You should give them all the powers they need to perform the job they were hired to do and nothing more or less. I would recommend not allowing people to delete stuff as it's best if moderators were only able to send things to a trash can forum though.

 

[DarkRaven]

Depends upon the administrator. If it's a systems administrator, then I'd give them cPanel access. I only hire a sys admin if they know that side better than I do. Regular administrator, FTP at the most.

Then again, in MyBB the config file is what decides who the root admin is... I'd be wary about that.

 

[John1]

I give an admin enough power to ban (not permanent) and moderate users, close and delete threads and also access to the admin panel for certain things, e.g forum tools, user moderation.

I use vBulletin so you can assign certain permissions.

 

[Justin]

No one ever gets my cpanel unless an emergency happens. So I control that. if it is someone who works along side me for projects and all, they can have Founder.

Moderators, get just basic permissions.

 

[Fergal]

I've given admins full access, including cPanel access in the past, and it has never been a problem. Saying that I would suggest that you should only give your staff the access that they absolutely need. Trusting someone, isn't a reason to give them access to something that they don't need.

The less people that have access to something, the less chance that something will go wrong. Plus if something does go wrong it will be easier to find out exactly what happened, if less people had access.

Everyone makes mistakes. I myself have made mistakes in the admin area, that have been damaging to my forums. The less access people have, the less damage they can do.

Where possible, it is a good policy to make a full back up, before giving anyone access to an area of your site or hosting, that could be damaging to your forum.