Hi--

I've got a real sick-o on my hands I think. Seems to fancy himself the Devil or something. (If you wanna take a look, it is at http://www.footprintsinthewind.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=GatheringPlace&Number=4142).

So what is the best way to deal with this? I could ban him as a user, but I suspect he would just re-register. I could ban his IP address, but he's logging in from several.

So other than a technical answer, it seems to me one way would be to just ignore him.

But surely someone here has some good advice for me. Help!

Hey Doug, long time no see

People being a nuisance will always be a problem on a message forum. Most of the time I ignore them unless they begin causing others to leave. Sometimes I take it personally and ban every IP they try to register from, band the email domain they are using and turn on 'moderated registration' - it's my site and I have no problem out-waiting the eejits of the world They'll usually tire and move on to some other hapless site.

You can complain to their ISP, sometimes that works.

You can send a pm that that kinda behaviour is not tolerated.

You can also discuss in the pm what might be bugging them, sometimes they just need an ear.

ummmmmm.... having people with a different opinion tho is usually good for discussion, it moves things along and keep conversation going. So unless he's acting in a way that makes long time people leave, I'd say let him keep up the conversing

I've had users stir things up or break some rules. I've had good luck contacting them and telling them that they are "on probation"... this seems to work better than banning, because banning makes them mad.

I give them a time limit.... on probation for 2 weeks..... etc.

Then I use my Private Moderation hack (in the beta mods forum) to place them into private moderation. Then all their posts have to be approved. I reassure them that they can still participate.... just all their posts must be approved.

If they behave..... moderation will be removed after the time limit. If they continue... the next step is banning.

It's worked on problem users. Doesn't help with outright trolls.... but it's worked well.

Allen and Josh--

I like your idea, Allen of banning the domain, and yours, Josh of probation, and supervising his posts.

Another part of me says to just ignore him. But I suspect that might be difficult. For one thing, he's been logging on twice a day or more, and that is unusual on my board. It just seems to say to me that he want to promote his hate and violence every chance he gets.

Allen, is banning the domain the same as banning the IP address?

Thanks. Any other wisdom out there for all of us?

Hi,
I've run a board for years now and one of the reasons we have upgraded to Threads from Classic is for a new idea to deal with problems like this.
If you ban someone with a dynamic IP it doesn't do anything because they just re-register. If you have registration approval on then you can sometimes catch them out but not always. Here's what we are going to try out and you might want to try the same thing.
Create a new forum called "bad boys/girls" and make it so they cant go anywhere but in there. A bit like a jail as only the bad ones will be able to talk to each other. Depending on what they do is how long you bannish them to this single forum.
We are going to give it a try, however I dont know how to set this up yet as our forum is still being setup. But I beleive it's through new user groups.
Someone else might be able to help you more with setting it up.

sexgod
What I would do is creat a new group like jailed then create a new catigory then make your "jailed" forums (so that only the "jaild" group will see it) in the new catigory. then you will need to edit the users groups and place a check mark in the new group. Also edit your admin account (or your main account) and check the new group so you can keep an eye on that forum at the same time it will be invisabe to every one else.

I did the same thing but it is a "teaser forum" to get people to redgister. I got that idea from Joshpet on his test board.

Thanks Donnti,
I'll look into that when my board is finally setup.

Also how do I change my Publicly Displayed Name? I was tired when I signed up and thought it was the password field I was filling out. It wasn't till now that I noticed it was sexgod as my name lol

sexgod

They have it set up so you can not change your display name. You might want to send a Pm to one of the admins like Justdave, AllenAyres, or Joshpet. They might be able to do something about it. But it would be at the "my home" and at the bottom of the page you can change your prefences.

let me know.... and I'll change it for you.

The registration approval thing worked wonders for me... I actually have some people that formed a site for Storm Haters...*LMAO* I knew I'd arrived when I saw that..hehe Anywayz, it has virtually eliminated all my problem folks. Another thing to look into and I'm not sure how to do it or if there's already a way built in. But if we could get rid of certain e-mail domains like hotmail, freemail, etc... The free e-mail accounts and only allow actual isp supplied e-mails this would do the trick as well. Do we have this anyone??

Yeah, in the admin menu -> "edit bad emails"

You can put specific addresses in there... or domains.... like hotmail.com

Doug,

Is this guy for real? I sat down and read all he wrote and coming from a 19 year old in the airforce I say he must be pretty depressed and trying to let of steam - showing that he is a hotshot.

I like the idea of the private jailed forum. The problem is that you have anonymous posting on and he can still voice his opinion, or even so register as a new user.

If he continues I would go the extra mile and inform his isp.

Nikos--

I have no idea whether he is for real as he says. His registration is a hotmail address. I wonder if I can check a user out there and learn more about him? I'll go see after I finish posting here.

So can anybody tell me how do I ban a whole domain? I have 5.4.4 php, and all I see there is username and IP address with the % thing.

Thanks, Nikos!

[]all I see there is username and IP address with the % thing[/]

You should be able to ban his IP address. You mentioned that he is using several different ones. In our experience, the only ones that really prove to be a problem are 1.) AOL, because they route half the country through the same IP's, or 2.) You have several members in a very small area sharing the same line and therefore the same IP (like in the same neighborhood, small city, etc.) Other than those two circumstances, we haven't had a problem banning IP's.

Run a search like this:
SELECT DISTINCT B_ip FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_Username = ' [:"red"]username[/] ' (enter their username)

and then this:
SELECT B_Username FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_ip LIKE '[:"red"]XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX[/]' (enter each of the IP's you got from the first search)

The first search will give you all the IP's he's posted under. Then the second search will tell you if anyone else has posted with those IP's other than him. If you don't have any conflicts, ban those IP's. We usually try taking the IP back a few digits if all of their IP's are similar, using '%'

If you find that his IP or IP's will be easy to ban and not conflict with other users, you can add the IP to an .htaccess file and deny him access to your entire site. (I think your server needs to be running Apache to use the .htaccess?) With certain users we ban their IP and then we deny them access to the site totally. We've only had 1 person in 40 or 50 that went beyond that step and went to a library to sign up again. We manually approve all users though, so she was caught before getting approved.

I adjusted those searches for what I could remember of the older versions (we're running 6.2.2). I think those are the correct ones though - the B_IP and B_Username from the Posts table.

Lisa--

Thanks for the code!

Now for the tough part--I am not as technical as most of the folks here, so I have no idea what to do with it. I can run WS_FTP Pro well enough to upload and download and sometimes change some rights, but that's about it.

So if you are willing, can you tell me where and how I enter those searches?

And, pressing my luck, are you willing to tell me exactly what the entry would look like if I need to enter those % thingies?

Thanks, Lisa!

Those are SQL queries....which you can enter under "SQL queries" in the admin menu.

Josh--

In my admin menu I see Database Manager|SQL Command. Is that the place?

Thanks, Josh!

Yes.

two suggestions
1. remove the user from all groups so he sees only errors... if he contacts you tell him there are tech problems
2. create some forums for sick visitors... move the guy there so he can only see those forums and nobody else can see what he posts... and he will not bother anyone... if you do it well he will not even notice




That said I would like to know how some database codes/commands to find the IP's of people... like all the username register from a certain IP... and who registered from a certain IP

Also... is there a way, or mod, for admins to see IP before members post?


Another good thing which I do not know how to do would be to change the banned message to "sorry but due to technical problems you can not post from that part of the country..."

When I ban a user... three our of 4 times they reply with insults and threats of more to come... banning a sicko no matter how you do it feed whatever it is motivates him to pester you...

You can also try to scare him but it does not usually work... but it is worth a try... say you are coming after them or that you will call the police... but tell them where they are be making a little search on their IP

If you tell him "the police in Miami Beach will come to ask you questions" is a lot more scarier for a guy in Miami Beach than just "I will call the police..."

Thanks. That will help me a lot.

I am a bit scare of entering command in there and the few times I did nothing happened

[] Run a search like this:
SELECT DISTINCT B_ip FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_Username = ' username ' (enter their username)

and then this:
SELECT B_Username FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_ip LIKE 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' (enter each of the IP's you got from the first search)

The first search will give you all the IP's he's posted under. Then the second search will tell you if anyone else has posted with those IP's other than him. If you don't have any conflicts, ban those IP's. We usually try taking the IP back a few digits if all of their IP's are similar, using '%' [/]


do you just copy it, past it into the command box, and replace the xxx wit the number... but is it with the '' or not?
SELECT B_Username FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_ip LIKE XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

or
SELECT B_Username FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_ip LIKE 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX'

and the same question for the other... how do I enter it?
this time you place a space between the '' and the username

so do i enter
SELECT DISTINCT B_ip FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_Username = ' username '

or

SELECT DISTINCT B_ip FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_Username = username

or
SELECT DISTINCT B_ip FROM w3t_Posts WHERE B_Username = 'username'

there should be a place where all the commands are listed. Is there?

The quotes are required for columns that are strings, which would include B_Username and B_IP. The quotes are optional for numeric columns, such as B_Number.

But the Posts table no longer has a B_Username column, unless you're using an older version.

Janedoe--

Oh, so you would remove him from the group "Users" as well? That sounds cute! What does he see?

And your "private forums idea sounds neat--kinda creating his own little world for him. Wonder if there is a way to clone threads, so it looks just like the real ones?

Anybody know?

Glad you asked those how to do it questions--we're both learning!

he will see mysql errors in all lines, an places...
why dont you try it?
he will think the board is down...

Tip: create a new username and try it!

If you remove a user from all groups (even the "User" group), they shouldn't get errors, they just shouldn't see any forums. When I tested this I could still do searches, see who's online, etc., just no forums. If they log out, they'll still be able to see anything guests can see (obviously). It will prevent them from posting though.

The commands I listed I tried to make compatible to the prior release. If you are running 6.2x, the commands are (just run it through the "SQL Command" feature in the admin panel):

SELECT DISTINCT B_IP
FROM w3t_Posts
WHERE B_PosterID = $User (replace user's user Number)

that gives all the IP's a user has posted under.

SELECT U_RegIP
FROM w3t_Users
WHERE U_Number = $User (replace user's user Number)

that gives you the IP the person registered with.

SELECT B_PosterID
FROM w3t_Posts
WHERE B_IP = 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx' (replace IP number here)

that gives you all the people who have posted under a particular IP address. It's usually more helpful if you chop off a couple of the last numbers and use '%' at the end, so it will pull a slightly larger range of IP's.

JustDave has a mod that looks for duplicate users by placing a cookie and notifying the admin if the person logs in under another name. I wrote up a mod that adds the "Show IP" to the admin menu for users, so you can see what IP's the person has posted under.

As for seeing an IP before the person posts, we have the users' (not just anonymous) IP's listed in the who's online for admin and mods to see.

As for the 'you've been banned' language, it's in languages/yourlanguage/generic.php -- $ubbt_lang['YOU_BANNED']. You could easily change the language to say, "We've encountered the following problem:". The language after the colon comes from the "Reason" field when you ban a person. So if you wanted it to say tech. difficulties, you'd just ban them and put "we're experiencing technical difficulties in your area" or whatever. They won't see anything about being banned, they'll just see "We've encountered the following problem: we're experiencing technical difficulties in your are."

When I remove a username from all groups with 6.2.2 they can see all features and read pm's, but there are error messages all over...
Did you try?

Thanks for the new commands. They should be able to help a lot. Thanks

[]Did you try?[/] Yep I have 1 "extra" account for each group, so I have "Admin_test" in the admin group, "Mod_test" in the mod group, "User_test" in the user group, "Guest_test" in the guest group, "Banned_test" in the banned group, etc. That way I can always log in as each different group to make sure whatever I've changed has affected the correct groups. When I take my "User_test" out of all groups, I don't see any errors. The only difference is that I see no forums, everything else looks the same.

I wonder if they fixed that recently. That was my trick from way back.

I used to just let trouble makers think the board is broken.

It should work for Doug under the 5 series.

Maybe it got fixed, maybe some mod I've installed changed it? I don't think I ever tried before this, so I don't know.

Maybe it shouldn't have gotten fixed?

Well I had pointed out a bug in the last beta... that you can uncheck all the boxes in the config file and thus have new users added to no group....which caused errors. So maybe it got fixed.

UPDATE w3t_Users SET U_Display='nada' WHERE U_Number='XXXX'

LOL

That'll fix them.

When it's someone who's been banned and they were more than a little irritating, when they email to find out why they were banned (and they usually do ) and to tell me how unfair it is, blah, blah, blah, I usually respond with: "It is clear to everyone that you don't enjoy our forums. You do seem to enjoy irritating people though. If you'd like to let me know just why you'd like to return to our forums, other than to be a pest, please let me know. I'd be happy to reinstate your account if you have some plan for meaningful contribution. If you aren't happy at our forums WHY would you want to return?" Nobody has ever come up with a good answer and they just leave. We did have one person who responded to the "WHY would you want to return" question with something like, "I thought I was doing you a favor by posting at your little board." Please, no favors. (Besides, we're not little. )

another suggestion

when you ban a user they come back and can see their PM's and the board as usual... they only find out they are banned when they try to post or to send a pm

and most of the times they have no way to contact their friends other than by pm's...

that is why they may want to come back and why they may insist...

if you delete all their pm's that reason no longer exists

and you can opt for changing their password instead of banning them (also change their email so they can not recover the pw)

At my board when a user is in no groups he sees errors...

you have to play dirty sometimes...

Hi everybody--

I checked out the no groups thing, and it results in mysql errors displaying all over.

How do I delete all their PMs?

Oh, BTW, the guy just seems to have disappeared. (fingers crossed)

click on the username, then "become this user"
and simply delete all pm's

if he offended someone you can send apologies in his name too... and a good bye too...

(that will get themn really upset if they find out)

And if you are paranoid you should not put your board address here as that pest could be reading what you are trying to do... in extreme cases only

[] as that pest could be reading what you are trying to do... in extreme cases only [/]

Unfortunately I have that problem now. It's very annoying to know someone is looking over your shoulder.

We have a ban check on all pages that I can think of, PM's, editing profile, who's online, search, viewing other people's profiles, etc. If you are banned you can't "do" anything.