In the previous post, we discussed how to control usergroup’s access to forums.

Another handy feature that vBulletin offers is the promotions feature, which is found under the “Usergroups” section. With this feature, you can allow the system to automatically upgrade users based on parameters you set. You can set what time and how many times a day this is done with the Scheduled Task Manager. For example, slower boards may update user levels once an hour, where more popular boards may wish to update four times per hour.

With the promotions feature, you can advance a new user to a full user status, and you can base it on several things: number of posts, days of membership, and reputation. You can choose a combination of these factors, or just operate off of one. For example, you may wish to moderate a new user’s posts until he or she has 3 posts. Once they have 3 posts, you can set it to automatically promote the user to full status. You can promote them to a new primary group, or a secondary group, depending on how you wish to configure your usergroup settings.

You can also demote users. Suppose you require your users to participate. If a user has been a member for 14 days, and only has one post, you can easily bump them to a banned status, or you can even set up an entirely new usergroup that can you can automatically clean out (delete the users) on a regular basis. A more popular option is to move users who have not completed e-mail verification after, say, 3 days. If they haven’t responded to the verification e-mail, you can simply move them to the banned users queue, or to a queue whose users are automatically deleted.

As with many of the other features that vBulletin offers, the opportunities are endless with the promotions feature. You can have complete control over what your users can and cannot do, based on parameters you set, giving the feel of a completely professional board, regardless of your subject matter.

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