An alternative to banning: Miserable Users

This hack is an alternative to banning a user. As the name suggests a user who
gets hit with this hack will become truly miserable while trying to access
your board.

So here is what really happens to a miserable user:

- There is a random 60-120 second delay each time they click on a link.
- 90% of times they have no search engine acccess.
- 75% of the times they get the server too busy error.

If they don't get the server too busy error:
- 50% of the times they may get a blank page
- 30% of the times they may get forwarded to the forum main page
- 20% of the time they may be able to see the page they asked for.

after doing all the math in actuality they have only a 5% chance of seeing the
page they clicked on. What kills them is the time they have to wait before
anything happens.

I actually once tracked a miserable user and watched him suffer for 2 whole
hours before he was able to make a simple post.

This hack is considered one of the most sadistic hacks on my board.

The hack allows you to make your user miserable via the admin CP. It also
allows you to search for all miserable users through the admin CP as well.

Also in showthread.php, it appends a red status that is only visibly to admins
and mods stating that a user is miserable.


Tables affected by this hack: user

Files affected by this hack: global.php, showthread.php, admin/user.php

[cirisme]

I love this hack.

[Pikok]

I love this hack, but I also use the ban by warning hack. Currently when a user reaches a preset number of warning points, they're moved to the banned by warnings group. What I need is to be able set a usergroup as miserable or not, rather than an individual user.

Users aren't allowed to see the warnings list, so they don't know how many points equals a ban. How would I set it up so that if a user is in the banned group they are miserable, but if not they aren't. I may sometimes unban a user (by moving them out of the banned usergroup) at which time I'd need for them to not be miserable any longer (only while in the banned usergroup).

Anyone know how to put an option in the usergroup section of the admin cp where I could set a certain group as miserable or not, as oposed to an individual user? I'd like to have the option listed when a usergroup is created/edited, much like the group permissions are.

Thanks for any help..

[Zzed]

Add this before the if($bbuserinfo[miserable] == 1) code in global.php

PHP Code:

if($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] == $banned_usergroupid) {
  $bbuserinfo[miserable] = 1;
} 


Where $banned_usergroupid is the usergroup number for your banned users.

It will make all the users who belong to that usergroup miserable as soon as they log into your site.

[Pikok]

Thanks for the quick response! This is what my global.php looks like now:

PHP Code:

if($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] == 8) {
  $bbuserinfo[miserable] = 1;
}
if($bbuserinfo[miserable] == 1) {
  $glitch = rand(60,120);
  for($x = 0;$x < $glitch;$x++) {
    echo " ";
    sleep(1);
  }
  $floodchecktime *=10;

  $glitch = rand(0,100);
  if(glitch < 90) {
    $enablesearches  = 0;
  }

  $glitch = rand(0,100);
  if($glitch < 75) {
    eval("standarderror("".gettemplate('error_toobusy')."");");
    exit;
  }
  else {
    $glitch = rand(0,100);
    if ($glitch < 80) {
      if ($glitch < 50) {
        exit;
      }
      echo "<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="5; URL=index.php"> ";
    }
  }

  $showforumusers  = 0;
  $displayloggedin = 0;
} 


Just one more question though. If I later move a user out of the banned usergroup, will they automatically be not miserable or do need to add some sort of elseif statement to the usergroup part I just added that would setit to 0 rather than 1?

[Zzed]

Very cool.

You won't have to do anything since the misery flag gets set if the user belongs to the banned group. moving them back to the registered user group will not set that flag anymore.

[Pikok]

Okay, thanks..

This hack is pure evil!!! I love it!

Keep up the great work!

[Zzed]

Thank you for your kind words.

[Big Daddy Chemo]

This hack will prove to be timeless...

One request though -> can you offer some code that will give MODS the ability to toggle the misery setting as well?

[Pikok]

Today at 09:43 PM Big Daddy Chemo said this in Post #108
This hack will prove to be timeless...

One request though -> can you offer some code that will give MODS the ability to toggle the misery setting as well?

That would be a good option. Would need to be a way of also setting it so that mods couldn't set other mods and/or admins to miserable though.. Only admins or those with admin cpanel access would be able to make mods/admins miserable.

[Zzed]

Oh boy, I knew this was going to get me in trouble.

I have this hack in place on my site. But it combines 6 other hacks which gives the moderators the power to impose misery, starvation, and a couple other hacks on users for time periods of 1, 3, or 7 days. And after the "served time" the users go back to normal.

I need to think about how to do a partial release of what I have in place...