SMF Store Moderator Group

Hi all,

I was going to PM this to our gracious host, but I realized that would probably just be annoying. I don't want to disclose anything from our discussion, but suffice to say this is just my feeling, not anything he said or inferred. Great guy.

This is sort of my brainstorming on a feature concerning being able to let other users "moderate" your store.

Here goes! These are just suggestions, etc. I'm hoping this is helpful somehow in the same vein as my "SMF TopSites" thread.

New general admin options:

* Allow store moderators at all?
* Store moderators shown on store view?

New store category options:

* Set user and/or membergroup who can moderate this category.
* Hide category if membergroup is empty.

Hiding the category if the moderator group is empty means that you can have people subscribe to a membergroup, set that membergroup to moderate a category, and ensure that they MUST keep subscribing for their category to stay "open"!

New permissions you can give to membergroups:

UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, the below permissions ONLY apply to categories where this membergroup are set as moderators!

* Admin store. The whole shebang!!
* Approve comments.
* Remove comments.
* Give free product.
* Edit product.
* Add product.
** Ability to restrict users to sell digital items only!
** Allow user to select "additional categories."
** Allow user to select "sale" features.
** Allow user to select "shipping" features.
** Allow user to select download expiration date.
** Allow user to allow access to all downloads. (But why would we?)
** Allow user to create subscription. (Bad idea to allow this.)
** Allow user to set start/end date for item to appear.
** Allow user to set the PayPal address.
* Create Coupon.
** Create basic coupon.
** Create percentage coupon.
* Set access to their own category.
* Create categories anywhere.
* Create subcategories ONLY within their own category.
* Delete item.

It's VERY important that this be dealt with on a category-by-category basis!

The reason for this is that we don't want someone going and deleting or creating coupons for items from a category they don't belong in!

With the above features, you could theoretically set up a category for your friend Joe, put him in a special membergroup, make that membergroup the moderator for his category, and let him post his own stuff for sale.

If he wanted to bring on another friend, you could just add him to Joe's membergroup, too!

If they have to subscribe, then if Joe's friend drops out, the category is still open until Joe unsubscribes - at which point it is hidden but not deleted.

With this you could even set up a 'free items' category... just set it as such:

* Regular Members can add items.
* No one can set the price. They're always free!
* No one can delete items, edit items, etc.
* No start/end dates, etc. It's a simple upload.

And that's in addition to your other categories that behave differently!

Tying users to the files they upload/sell would also be preferrable... List them on the user's profile, if the user stops subscribing to a certain group revoke his items, etc.

Or I guess the simpler request would be...

"Can you make store categories like boards, with a moderator who oversees, and users able to post and edit their own posts as per their group's permissions?"