How do I limit specific column options to moderators?

Question

I added a column "sticky" to create sticky threads and posts (I followed this http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/36855/Sticky-posts-in-SharePoint-Discussion-boards guide)

My questions is... how do I make the sticky option only available to moderators or administrators and not for a basic user?

I am running SharePoint 2007

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Another extra question: Are there any free extensions to make the 2007 discussion board have more/better functions and maybe improve its aesthetic look?

Answer 1

What you are looking for is Column level security which SharePoint doesn't have. There are some third-party tools that offer it or you can roll your own.

And, while I haven't actually done this, I have heard of some people using workflows to accomplish something similar. I.e.. create a 'Sticky' workflow that will add its own column to the list and set the value when the workflow is run.

One other option would be to create an Event Receiver to monitor the ItemAdding and ItemUpdating events and then kick out an error if someone attempts to set 'Sticky' that does not have permissions. This is not a good user experience but it is fairly simple to do.