Moderators Functions - One-touch Spam Ban and Cleanup

*** Staff note: The author of this modification has passed away in a diving accident. We wish his family all strength in dealing with this tragic issue. ***

One-touch Spam Ban and Cleanup




The main purpose of this mod is to clean up after a spammer. With a minimum of fuss it will:

• Delete all threads started by the spammer
• Delete all posts made by the spammer
• Delete all PMs sent to other members by the spammer
• Delete all calendar events made by the spammer
• Ban or delete the spammer as you like
• Ignore permissions - posts can be deleted in areas that a moderator may not have access to.

The option to activate this tool appears in the drop-down menu in the postbit, as well as on the profile page. From here it is a "one-touch" operation, with the small exception that you must press a confirmation button before the cleanup is made.




See the screenshot for the various options, but some of the more interesting ones are:

• You can specify individual users (in addition to groups) who can use this tool. This means certain trusted, non-moderator users could have the ability to clean up spam and ban spammers.
• You can specify users or groups who are protected - they cannot be deleted by this tool.
• By default, users who have registered more than 30 days ago are also protected from this tool (spammers tend to be caught and removed fairly soon after registration)
• You can turn the various deletion targets (threads, posts, events, PMs) on or off
• Select between hard delete or soft delete

This mod is similar to some older mods, but improved in a number of ways:

• You also have the choice to alter the standard ban and delete reasons before you press confirm.
• Deletes more types of spam (PMs, events)
• Simple, quick, effective
• Single file import (.xml) no file edits, no template edits, no .php files to upload
• Should work on all versions of 3.6.x and future versions

Installation

Download and import the .xml file via AdminCP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product. Remember to click overwrite if upgrading

Configuration

Once installed, check in your AdminCP under "VBulletin settings" and look for the configuration group called "One-touch Spam Ban & Cleanup Options". The default options should be fine for most people.

How to use

If you have rights to use this tool (i.e. are an admin or moderator, or have configured it for the relevant user or group ID) you should see the option appear on the member profile page, or in a drop-down on the postbit (see attached screenshots for an example). The idea is that as soon as you see a spammer select the "One-touch Ban & Clean" option to remove all trace of the spammer.

Support




Support will be given to those who have:

• Read these instructions (and followed them) and
• Clicked install

Version history

1.0 - initial version (28.08.2007)
1.1 - security fix (21.09.2007)
1.2b - Beta Fix to work with vb3.7.0 (20.05.2008)

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by mfyvie

Hmm, strange. I don't know enough about the template hook system to comment, but I would have thought that just adding the hook would be enough, but maybe there's more to it than that. Well at least you've resolved the problem manually in any case.

So sorry mfyvie, yes adding the hook worked as you said and I wrote the wrong thing in previous post as I was modifying postbit to show One-touch Ban & Clean at the bottom of each post and PM. Thats the way I wanted it on my site.

[j_86]

Any chance of having a move threads feature rather than deleting them? We have a 'Litter Tray' forum to move threads to instead of deleting.

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by JimpsEd

Any chance of having a move threads feature rather than deleting them? We have a 'Litter Tray' forum to move threads to instead of deleting.

My feeling on this is that it makes little sense to move spam to such an area. I have a trash / dupes forum as well, but that's where I put stupid questions from my users. The aim of a spammer is to get his message through, and since this is a spam tool the best thing to do is delete it, rather than move it somewhere else. I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, but I still can't see the logic in this...

[Apophis]

Originally Posted by mfyvie

This is most strange. The relevant code can be found in the plugin called "Insert into templates" at postbit_display_start:

eval('$template_hook[postbit_user_popup] .= " ' . fetch_template('postbit_onetouchban') . '";');

The php concatenation operator ".=" is used there. This means, append the contents, rather than replace them. This seems to work correctly on other systems, but I've no idea why it isn't working on yours. Basically what is happening is that something else should resetting that hook on each iteration, but that isn't happening, so this hook keeps growing and growing as you proceed down the page. Are you running an older version of vbulletin (bug maybe?) or perhaps another hack is causing this behaviour?

You can work around it by changing the ".=" to just "=" but this will kill any other mods that might be using this template hook (though you probably don't have any).

I'm running 3.6.7 PL1 right now. I just haven't gotten around to upgrading to 3.6.8. Maybe I'll do that today and see if the problem still exists.

The only other plugins I have that are using postbit_display_start are v3 Arcade and Yet Another Award System 3.6.

I'll do that upgrade and then report back if the problem still exists.

[mfyvie]

Apophis - I also run 3.6.7 PL1, so unlikely an issue there. Try disabling those products just for a few minutes (and any others that use other hooks in postbit, not just display_start) and see if that resolves it. From there it should be easy to pinpoint.

[Apophis]

Originally Posted by mfyvie

Apophis - I also run 3.6.7 PL1, so unlikely an issue there. Try disabling those products just for a few minutes (and any others that use other hooks in postbit, not just display_start) and see if that resolves it. From there it should be easy to pinpoint.

Disabling YAAS didn't help nor did disabling v3 Arcade.

Moving on to products that hook into other areas of postbit:

AnyMedia BBCode 3.0.3: No Change
vBSEO: No Change
nCode Image Resizer: No Change
vBGoogleMap Member Edition: No Change

That's all I could find for products/plugins that tie into any postbit_ hook.

[mfyvie]

Ok, in that case I'm out of ideas :-) When I get a chance I'll have to take a look at alternative ways of implementing that, in the meantime you could try my suggestion of changing ".=" to "=" to fix it. Let's see if anyone else reports the same issue.

[Apophis]

Originally Posted by mfyvie

Ok, in that case I'm out of ideas :-) When I get a chance I'll have to take a look at alternative ways of implementing that, in the meantime you could try my suggestion of changing ".=" to "=" to fix it. Let's see if anyone else reports the same issue.

As having the functionality in the postbit isn't of great importance to me, I simply disabled that plugin and can do it from the users profile instead. I'll give the ".=" to "=" fix a whirl a little later today and see if that does the trick for me.

Small issues such as the postbit one aside, this is a great product and will save me, and my moderators, a lot of time when it comes to dealing with spammers! Thanks for the contribution!

[hypertextfever]

What a wonderful mod. Thanks so much!!!

[ishare]

INSTALLED!
Very usefull mod. Thanks a lot for this share...