How to get rid of a really, really annoying member
 

Just need some advice to get rid of a member who has been banned like 20 times on a ton of accounts, had about 10 IPs banned, went through Miserable Users and Tachy Goes to Coventry and basically won't stay away even though typical user names of theirs have been blocked from names and such like. I've had suggests to shut down registrations, but that would stop legitimate members. I've also heard of moderating new members, but that then leads to legitimate members being inconvenianced when they want to join and have to wait for either their membership or posts to be moderated.

Oh, and is there a way to ban by what is entered in a profile field?

What is so annoying about this user? maybe he loves so much your forum!
[I saw a thread like this few days ago]

The more time you spend trying to get rid of him, the more attention he feels, and the more likely he will stick around. (and, yeah, there was a thread just like this a few days ago.)

No, and it's far worse than that. I know the tons of people who love my forum, and this guy certainly isn't one of them, but a semi obsessive which pretty much annoys the staff on every website they visit. Youtube spamming their accounts and videos, emailing them with various threats, making tons of spam accounts, harshly swearing at various members, etc. They were banned originally in about April last year, and still won't go away. They mass spammed the site a few times, which got cleared up by moderators. Hacked friends accounts, got into various arguments and flame wars which caused people to leave the forum, spammed an old shoutbox which I used to use, spammed shoutboxes and impersonated people on forums ran by people who go to my own forum and were banned from various unrelated sites for being... idiots.

Once again [like in the other thread] I will say: IGNORE HIM, it's your job to clear-ban-mod good and bad users... all what you say he does, cost time or even money, he will get tired... if not, you're learning from him, by tracing back his actions... Then u get experience and then u can create a simple solution like the one you're looking right now ;)

You've got his IP, right? So email his ISP with a list of his offenses and see if they are willing to do something - especially bring up the spamming and hacking. Many ISPs do not like that at all.

But, seriously, I used the whole "moderated usergroup" thing for a long time - two years. I just wrote in the welcome message that the first several posts were moderated to prevent spam. People understand this. You can promote them automatically after a week (or whatever) or after so many approved posts.

The last 20 odd accounts are through proxies. Or other people's computers. Or some school/public institution computers. They always have different IPs, and are not the same each time. The things that tie them together are the spamming/arrogant behaviour and own admittance he's the same person.

But I guess I'll have to try the moderated usergroup thing,

You can get really creative with miserable users it's redirect function. Shock sites have a purpose.
Also it might be a nice idea to code this into miserable users.
I assume you have AE detector? And Paul's show real IP hack? If not then get it.
You do not have to moderate new members, but you do need to review them. One by one. There is a hack that shows the newest members on the forum index. That will allow you and your mods to review all of them and ban them on sight.
Another idea is to block all proxies. Since your troll needs to be using proxies to circumvent your IP bans, taking away proxies is the way to go. An alternative to blocking all proxies is to use a hack to move new registrants that use proxy to a moderated member group.
See:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=131852
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=157507
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=96318
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=147280

Do those modifications work on version 3.7?

hehe... no simple solutions...
but I think he spent more time Spamming that the Mod cleaning, or even opening a new account than the Mod closing it...

There's two ways to find out...
Ask in those threads or try...

Thanks for that inspiring idea. But I've now set it so all new users need five approved posts to become full members, and ran the upgrade usergroup process to move all semi regular members to the higher usergroup.

best way has to be send the user to coventry as i tried that week on an annoying member and even though they could still post etc no one else could see it and everything went quiet.
I unbanned the person from coventry and they are still none the wiser to what i done as everything seemed fine to them.

Now thats funny.


umm if this person is continuously using a proxy you can report him for abusing the proxie and using it in a harrassing manner. or read my thread I made on this.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=180971

nice tip shadow ... ;)

Guess I'll have to find another way in now. :(

:D

I like borking them

Like I would ever allow that. ;)

Ignore them, or put them in the miserable users group and use very low settings so it's just slightly annoying and don't realize that you are messing with them.

-Raymond

There is a mod in the forums that prevent banned users from logging out. He would have to delete his cookies every time. After a while, he'll get tired.

(Continued from Shawdow's advise)

Phase 7:
Install this Mod.

Apply it on that user whenever he register anew. :up: