1. Using Access masks for Groups|Roles

Access Masks in Admin sections are templates for subforums access

An example

Read Yes | - you can read topics in a forum

Post No | - you can post in a forum

Reply No | - you can reply in a topic in a forum

Priority No | - you can set topic sticky in a forum

Poll No | - you can create a poll in a forum

Vote No | - you can vote in a poll in a forum

Moderate No | - you can moderate the forum

Edit No | - you can edit posts in a forum

Delete No | - you can delete posts form a forum

Upload No | - you can uppload attachements in a forum

Download Yes - you can download attachements in a forum

Look at the roles view

and Edit a role, the masks are applicable to YAF added roles only. Keep in mind that YAF roles are the ASP.NET Membersip Roles registered in YAF.

Notice that you set the access mask for each forum individually.

If you create a new role, the role has a default access mask wich can be applied to all forums automatically.

Ir a user is in several roles he/she gets an access rights superposition from all roles.

2. Individual access.

You can set access mask for a user individualy too. It's no matter in which role a registered user is.

Notice, that user gets max access rigths which are summed up from all his access rigths.

From all this we can gather that a user access is defined by an access mask or superposition of several access masks.