Stopping a Troll
 

Hello

I run a Christian community site and we have a member that keeps joining our site and causing all kinds of problems. We ban his account & IP, however, he simply signs up again with another IP and/or email... then starts all over.

Is there anything we can do (legally or technically) to stop this person? Any help in this matter will be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Just moderate new registrations for a week or so and unless this guy really has no life he should give up.

ACP > User Reg Options > Moderate New Members > (yes)

Use the "Miserable Users" hack by Paul M...

technically that would work for a single account, but it won't stop him from re-registering a new, non-miserable account.. :)

If he's determined to come back, nothing much that you do will stop him. However, you could create a usergroup which has first X posts moderated, and after X posts, move the user into a "full permissions" usergroup.

If they haven't been banned and they don't know that they've had the hack turned on them, then they may not think to create another account.

Thanks for the help... it looks like I am stuck with this guy. Is there anything that can be done legally? Is there anyway to track a person on the web (we have his IP's, for example).... are there any sites/resources available on the internet to help find people like this? Thanks again for the help.

It is basically possible to track people but it is very difficult and involves more than sitting on a computer and "scanning the world". Nobody will start such a complicated chase unless the person is a national danger.

Better do not answer any of his posts or mails and tell your users to do the same. And delete his accounts over and over without saying a word. On the long term you will win, these people live on communication. If you don't talk but just throw his accounts away, he will get tired rather quickly. Don't talk.

A potential option is to make your forums private and put everyone acceptable into a usergroup with the proper privs. It would work, but eh..

Sent him to Coventry