[SDB]

Guys

It has become more and more clear to me that attempting to fight these people in this way just won't work. They are weird people who get a kick out of the attention you're providing them with.

You have to work much more cleverly, rather than aggressively.

If your forum is a busy one, you need to empower your members to get rid of these people.

We have fairly recently installed a great system we developed where an member who has less than 50 posts, has a button next to his name saying "ban me".

Any members of a certain user group (in our case, usergroups that are paid for - to reduce the potential for people abusing the system) can click this button. If two different members of the allowed groups click this on any of his posts, the user is immediately banned, and sent to coventry at the same time.

Result :
1) The account lasts a few minutes.
2) The idiot isn't fighting YOU as "the establishment" anymore, he gets to see that the community just doesn't want him.
3) The attention he got dissapears as his posts vanish immediately.
4) The community is more empowered to deal with these things.
5) Due to the 50 post minimum, it is a lot of work to build an account past this threshhold, so people don't bother.

We have a very strict code of conduct for its use, and anyone caught misusing it will be cautioned and then potentially banned without refund (hence the need for it to be paid for accounts - but could work with any accounts that have value - ie someone wouldn't want to lose them - long standing, lots of posts, etc).

This has dramatically transformed the trolling side of our forums, along with a similar practice for the infractions system built into vB.

I would strongly advise something similar, as we've always been of the opinion that attempting to ban someone (which is basically 100% impossible) will only make them feel stronger when they are "clever" enough to just register another account / IP address.

Good luck.