Students using a newly created Q and A forum with default settings are shown the "Add a new question" button as if they are teachers and can use that button to create their own new questions which other students can see and reply to. Having this "Add a new question" button visible for students as a default setting usually confuses both students and teachers alike, in my own hands-on teaching experience.

In other words, the present default Q and A forum is still behaving more like a standard general forum. This behavior occurs in both Moodle 2.0.3+ (Build: 20110525) and Moodle 1.9.12+ (Build: 20110518).

The default permissions for Q and A forums ought to prevent students from accessing the "Add a new question" button. Should a teacher then wish to give students access to the "Add a new question" button (a conceivable and reasonable variation of a Q&A forum activity), that teacher could simply override the new default to "Allow".

These changes in default permissions would seem to me to present the Q&A forum's intended behavior to students and teachers much more clearly than do this forum type's current defaults.

Related to MDL-19992 and maybe MDL-9376.

Replication instructions:

1. Log in as Teacher and create a new Q&A Forum with default permissions.
2. Log in as a student and go into the newly created Q&A Forum.
3. You will have access to the "Add a new question" button and you will be able to create your own new question as if you were a teacher.
4. Other students will be able to see and respond to your created new questions.

Very confusing for both students and teachers; not good.