VBulletin has the admin setting in its Control Panel to insert emails of moderators to get instant notification of new posts.
I would LOVE my users to be able to SELECT which moderator gets a notification email.
SWITCHBOARD FORUM
adds selectable specialist moderators for instant notification.
User selectable list when user composes post.
This would cut down enormously on the number of forums I have to manage. I am having to make 10 tiny subforums for each interest area just to enable a specialist moderator to be notified of the user's needs. That's 500 mini forums instead of 50 forums!!!!
How SWITCHBOARD FORUM would work:
User has section in their new post form that requires/ offers a list of specialist moderators on this forum to be notified of the post.
Admin can enable/ disable SWITCHBOARD on a forum and insert list of selectable moderators if enabled.
Can still have existing admin option of moderators who are always notified of a post.
I don't know if it's easier to code this as a dropdown select or radio buttons/ checkboxes. For me radio buttons would be best (one selection from the list of specialist moderators only) but others might like tickboxes, if it's possible.
I don't want this SWITCHBOARD on ALL my forums so it would need to enable/ disable at admin CP level.
With this feature -
- Users in each broad interest area can see everything they need in one forum instead of them having to check into 10 different forums to see what's happening or send several posts.
- The specialist moderators only get alerted when the subforum post applies to them.
If I go with one forum now -which would suit me as admin and the users much better, I have forum moderators getting loads of notifications when it's not really their precise area of responsibility and I risk them getting spamangry. Alternatively if I don't put their emails in busy moderators don't check forums often enough and users have to wait longer for support.
DETAIL
For this to work, the list of specialist moderators to select needs to display to the user with the MODERATOR USERNAMES so the user can recognise which one to select.
In a heavenly feature I could also add a word or two to the username as a label to identify the specialist mod's expertise. Later for that if that's too much trouble.
I myself need it so the user HAS to alert the right moderator if they want to post (radio buttons?). Others might prefer it as optional (checkboxes?)
OK so tell me this is a coding impossibility!