citc@zotum.net@zotum.net 
jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu@hub.netzgemeinde.eu@citc In order for someone to post to the forum channel, they must be connected to the channel, i.e. a member of the forum.
Now, you may consider this a severe design flaw because it goes against your idea of how things must work. But this is the best way by far for forum admins to have control over who can do what in the forum.
I mean, how many classic Internet forums allow outsiders to post and comment? Does Reddit allow that? Does Hacker News allow that? Does Slashdot allow that?
No, they don't. None of them do. They all only allow members to post. Because allowing non-members to post would give them next to no control over how to keep certain people from posting.
And no, Superblock is not a solution either.
Now, you may consider this a severe design flaw because it goes against your idea of how things must work. But this is the best way by far for forum admins to have control over who can do what in the forum.
I mean, how many classic Internet forums allow outsiders to post and comment? Does Reddit allow that? Does Hacker News allow that? Does Slashdot allow that?
No, they don't. None of them do. They all only allow members to post. Because allowing non-members to post would give them next to no control over how to keep certain people from posting.
And no, Superblock is not a solution either.
This is precisely the feature that forum channels on Hubzilla make use of. Everything that is to be posted in the forum is posted as a wall-post to the forum channel. And anyone who follows the forum channel (i.e. is connected to it on Hubzilla) will now see everything posted there as a wall post in their stream (their timeline), even if they have no direct contact (a connection) with other forum users. Replies to such posts are consequently also distributed to all connections (followers). This makes it possible to run a forum.
A standard forum channel without connections is effectively dead. If you create such a channel using the default channel role ‘Community Forum’, only the channel owner can post there. However, nothing appears in anyone’s stream or timeline. It is an echo chamber. Nobody can post in the forum because the channel role does not allow it. However, if someone establishes a connection to the forum channel, it is brought back to life. The channel role defines the basic permissions for a channel… in other words, what others are allowed to see and do. Wall posting is not permitted. These permissions can now be extended using contact roles (though permissions granted by the channel role cannot be revoked). There is always a default contact role associated with every channel role. As the name suggests, these are permissions that only apply to connections… they have no effect on outsiders or visitors. And in a forum, the default contact role also includes the permission to post on the wall. So anyone who has a connection to a forum channel also has the permission to post on the wall there, i.e. to make posts in the forum. Anyone without a connection can only view the wall and its contents, but cannot post. A connection to the forum channel is therefore a prerequisite for participating in a forum.
And now back to the permissions (which are defined in roles… channel roles and contact roles):
The channel role determines which permissions the channel itself grants. The contact role makes it possible to grant connections (but only connections) further permissions. Every channel always has a default contact role, which varies depending on the channel role. For a channel without connections, this contact role has no effect, as it only applies to connections. You can also create your own contact roles to grant even more or different additional(!) permissions to specific connections.
Here is a table providing an overview of the standard channel and contact roles (CC0):
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PDF-Version
Management of 'files' within a channel needs reduction in nerdy documentation, e.g. 'ocap' is meaningless.