Miserable Users
 

As of 24 Nov 2017 this modification has been withdrawn.

The ever popular "miserable users" hack for vb 3.8.

Basically a way to really annoy anyone you don't want visiting your forum. This version is based on the vb 3.7 version. Credit to Zzed for the original idea.

When classed as miserable, a member suffers ;

1. Slow response (time delay) on every page (20 to 60 seconds default).
2. A chance they will get the "server busy" message (50% by default).
3. A chance that no search facilities will be available (75% by default).
4. A chance they will get redirected to another preset page (25% & homepage by default).
5. A chance they will simply get a blank page (25% by default).
6. Post flood limit increased by a defined factor (10 times by default).
7. If they get past all this okay, then they will be served up their proper page.

Note: All the above options are set in the vBulletin Options.

To install this hack simply download the xml file to your pc and then import it into vbulletin as a product - then create your 'miserable users' usergroup and set the value of this group, and your preferred other settings, in the hacks settings area (vBulletin Oprions > Miserable Users). To make a member suffer just edit their profile to add them to the miserable users group (it will work as either the primary group or as a secondary group).


History:

v3.8.001 - Initial vB 3.8 release.

I love this hack on 3.7.x .... glad to see it again on 3.8.x

tank u man

I have the 3.7 version on my 3.8 board and it works fine. How is this one better?

Where does it say its better ?

sounds cold, why would you want to annoy your members like that?

This is a support thread, not a discussion on why you may/may not want to use it, if you cant see a use for it then you dont need to install it.

Then why post it unless it's been improved somehow?

It's a new version for 3.8 silly....

/me clicks install

Only some of your naughty members.

haha this is cruel... i love it!!

haha


i may have to try this one

a idea if you put it in option to do it by ips also it would b v cool b/c i have few ppl keep coming bk n i don't want ban their ips b/c they increase my members total lol so i will just bug them out lol v nice mod ty clicked installed

It already has that option.

wooT! still one of the best mods out there. :) thanks!

Just went from 3.03 (where I had this) to 3.8. Reinstalled and worked great. Thanks again.

Paul, Did this change much since the last one? Will my previous version continue to operate as it has in the past or do I need to upgrade?

Nothing has changed.

I recommend you upgrade. I had this mod installed. I had no usergroups assigned to be a "miserable user" and the plugin was disabled via the control panel. When I upgraded to 3.7.4 to 3.8.0 about 20% of my users started complaining about the pages not loading. It took almost a week of my time troubleshooting the problem. IT WAS THIS MOD (the previous version). There was no rhyme or reason to explain why 20% of the users were randomly being affected, or how a disabled mod could do this, or why upgrading to 3.8.0. caused this to happen.

If you are having this problem you might not even know it. Take a look at your stats and see if they suddenly dropped off after upgrading to 3.8.0.

Its impossible for a disabled mod to have any effect. Vb does not even load the code.

Nah, I've actually had a rise in posts since the upgrade. But then I have use of the hack to begin with. There was this one poster, it was absolutely magical...

Seriously good stuff.

The better question might be, what changes have been made?

Not according to the vbulletin developer who helped me find and fix this problem. This was actually their first suggestion but I too thought it was "impossible" and didn't listen to their advice and spent a week chasing ghosts in the machine that didn't exist.

Then it wasnt disabled.

I love this add-on. one of my favorite in the history of vb. props paul!



______________

btw.... hope this is ok to ask here (paul feel free to edit if not with my apologizes)
I have particularily persistent troll. Does know a url of a site or page with a bad pop-up pornado or malware/virus? or both http://www.igoo.com/forums/images/smilies/tongue.gif it might be worthwhile to have a miserable user troll redirect to that site on occasion. (PM me if not)
(right now we have it set to redirect to a random site everyonce in a while - I think I set it to 15% of the time and that just annoys him).

Point: aggressive extra deterent.

its one thing to get redirected to a random or shocking site, but someone would might be very fearful of getting redirected to site that gets them stuck in a pornado bomb and/or potentially damaging to there computer.

hell I know I would.

Sorry but I would not ever condone using it to do such a thing.

Thanks for this,, really appreciate ur time taken,

CHeers

thearve

I actually left this installed when I upgraded from 3.6.5 to 3.8.0, and it still seems to work fine.

fair enough. :)

apologizes for the post then. :( I fear my level of spite for trolls has led me down the dark side. luuuuke!! I am your father!!!!! :p

I have a few members on my site I would love to try this on. Hehe!

Well it was disabled in the control panel (and the font listing the mod changed to strikeout, showing vbulletin believes it is disabled) .... other than that I don't know how to disable a mod.

Then it cannot have any effect - the simple fact is that if a plugin is disabled, its code is not even loaded into the plugin cache, so it cannot run.

If it was disabled and running then your plugin cache must have been broken/corrupted, and that is not a problem related to this (or any other) mod, its a fault on your board.

Hi Paul

I've upgrade from vb3.6.1 to v3.8.0 and left this mod installed and running, everything works fine as far as I'm aware with the old version installed.

Has this version been changed in any way to the old version, or is this the old version that has been declared safe for 3.8?

There are no changes other than allowing it to install in 3.8, you can happily continue to use the older version.

I have been using this for so long.. they even created sites about how bad I am :) thanks Paul

to upgrade, will it overwrite the old one of do I need to remove old one?


Thanks

If you install the update it should remove the older version.

i would suggest putting in troll levels.

level 1 - they get screwed around 5% of the time.

level 3 - they get screwed around 50% of the time

level 5 - 90%

it wouldn't be that hard to do. instead of having a toll bit that is either 1 or 0 it can be a value that is from 0 to 5.

also it would be sweet if the script set a cookie so that if a miserable user tried to log out and make a new account the problems would still happen. it helps to create confusion as to if the user is being screwed with or the server is having problems. i wouldn't want them to know 100% that i was messing with them since that might only provoke them to cause more problems. i would rather them get frustrated with what they think is technical problems.

no matter what i am sure to install this great mod.

haha, its great, and a fun way to torture people >=]

has to be my favorite and most used hack ;)