Question Non-moderator users are getting kunena emails

If, however, I promote user to Editor (remember I have not changed Joomla User Groups: order is Registered->Author->Editor->Publisher) as soon as I promote to Editor the user becomes Rank: Administrator in Kunena and starts getting emails for ALL topics, regardless of which topic(s) the user is a Moderator for. (promoting to Publisher results in the same result -a they become Rank: Administrators.)

If it behaves like this, then go to Joomla configuration and check the permissions. Click on the Author tab, he must not have permission to access the administration interface and also no permission for the superuser.
Check the same for the Editor and the Publisher (see image).

 

Ahh,,, I see.
Our users do access the administrator backend as they create articles and menu items, etc. I expected that only a Joomla Administrator would be an Administrator in Kunena, and that Moderators would only receive emails for the categories they are responsible for.
You are saying that anyone accessing the Administrator backend is an Administrator in Kunena. Hmmmmm.
This is a problem then. I don't know how I will work around

"Administrator Login" and "Access Administration Interface" are not the same. If the Access Administration Interface is allowed for publishers, they have admin rights for the whole website. This is wrong and dangerous.With the Joomla default setting, editors and publishers have backend access, but not administrator rights. These are not needed by editors and publishers for their work. I have now also created 2 images for you to see the correct settings for editors and publishers. The settings for the author you can see on my picture in the previous post.

Editor

 



Publisher  

 

Hello Rich,
"Administrator Login" and "Access Administration Interface" are not the same. If the Access Administration Interface is allowed for publishers, they have admin rights for the whole website. This is wrong and dangerous.
This is not my understanding. If a user has Access Administrator Interface but does NOT have Super User Access (In Global Config settings) the user can access the backend, administer users, create new menu items, articles, et al(if you want - this can all be controlled) but the user CANNOT access Global Configuration settings in the back end. Thus they do not have access to the whole site, cannot access system settings, server settings, etc. 
I have tried changing the settings as you suggest but when I do my user cannot see any menu items in the back end. They cannot create menu items, articles, etc. Why have access to the backend at all in that case?
 

Maybe it was exaggerated, but an admin can break a lot. With your setting you make the publishers to admins. If you already want to give more rights, then choose the settings from my pictures, and add these people as managers. Then they have everything which is needed (also a reduced menu), but they are not admins.