How to Create Private Boards in SMF

In the course of managing and moderating your forum, you will probably identify a need for private forums, or, at least, exclusive forums where only members of a certain standing can participate. These might be maintenance or governance forums or anything requiring elite participation.

How to Create Private Boards in SMF

The important thing about creating private boards in SMF is that you can divide certain boards by user access. But understand, these forums are not “private” as in hidden or encrypted, but merely inaccessible by certain users. Follow the steps below to create private boards in SMF:

Log into SMF
Create a board using the normal process
Click Permissions
Choose Modify to adjust the parameters for the selected group

More Information About Creating a Private SMF Forum

Be careful about what you post. Again, it is always best to be mindful of what you are posting in your forum. Pay close attention to the terms and conditions that the administrator has set forth. If you are the administrator, of course, adhere closely to your own guidelines to make the discourse in the forum healthy. And also remember, while the board may be limited to exclusive members, the messages are not encrypted. All of the information is saved in plain text in the forum database.

Using Pre-Defined Permission Sets

You also have the option of creating pre-defined permissions sets so you can rapidly update permissions for a board without manually clicking through boxes. As the documentation says:

These allow you to use the “default” permission setups – standard means ‘nothing special’, restrictive means ‘like a guest’, moderator means ‘what a moderator has’, and lastly ‘maintenance’ means permissions very close to those of an administrator.
SMF Documentation

Now you know how to create an exclusive (or, private) board in SMF. Be sure to check out these other articles from the SMF education channel:

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