I've honestly tried and tried and tried to think of one use for passwording forums, and I simply cannot. It's a feature that almost every software has, yet, it appears to be one of the most useless. Do any of you use them? If so, for what?
No idea. I just do everything based on usergroups
I use it for subforums where only a few members of a particular usergroup should have access.
The more usergroups and forum permissions you have, the more server load. So in some cases passwords are the better solution than having, say, 20 more user groups.
But if you use password for some members to have access to a specific forum, then other members are still able to see this forum.
I think this is useless for something like this, if all members can access the forum if they have the password, then what if someone shares the password?
I really can't think of any good use of this feature but have never tried, who knows.
Never tried it. Just as linguis said, if you want to provide access to particular persons irrelevant of usergroup, then you can use it.
But as Sama said, its a bad option as someone can share their password to others too.
But then you run the risk of the password being leaked. If you base it on usergroups ONLY those people have access
When I was using phpBB, I used the password function to write private notes (as threads).
Course, I could of just set it so only I can see the particular forum.
It's just, options/choices are always welcome.
To protect moderator only sections. If a moderator account is stolen, they still cannot access the section.
Absolutely useless.
In my experience, there are always people that will share your password, because "they don't follow the rules" & whatnot.
Besides, having to input the password every time to access something is just annoying, most of people's logins are cached to prevent that, so why do it to a forum?
The separate usergroups makes the most sense for the best security.
>Creates web business with a forum
>Has clients, gives support through forum
>Creates special forums for customers who buy a custom product, forums are password protected
>Client can give password to company members who need support