Administrative and Maintenance Tools - User Punishment by BOP5

User Punishment by BOP5

"This is cruelest mod ever released since Miserable Users..."

This is the VB 4.x version.
VB 3.x version here.

Version 1.2

For too long we as admins have been limited on how we can take revenge on the users who drive us crazy. You know the ones- they don't break the rules per say but they certainly break the spirit of the rules.We don't want to ban them, Infractions don't really mean anything, So what could we do? We were stuck... until now.

User Punishment by BirdOPrey5 is Here!

This mod adds teeth to infraction points or can be used against specific users. Basically this mod will slow down a user's browsing experience by 1 or more seconds per request. A couple seconds here or there doesn't sound like a lot but think about it, if they make 30 clicks on your site per visit with a 2 second delay you've stolen a minute of their life. A minute they can never, ever get back.Like the torture machine from the movie "The Princess Bride" you have robbed from them the one thing no mortal man can ever recover. And like that torture machine you can turn it up as high as you like. [Insert evil grin smiley here.]

This mod has two ways of working. If you use the built in infractions system in vBulletin you can enable the mod to slow down a user's page load request based on the number of infraction points they have. By default 1 second for each point however you can multiply this with a setting- slow them down by 2, 3, or even 4 or more seconds per infraction point.

Now infractions actually mean something. As points expire their browsing speed will automatically return to normal.

The second option allows you to target specific users. In this mode you enter three pieces of data: The User ID, the Minimum Delay in Seconds, and the Maximum Delay in Seconds. The mod will then RANDOMLY slow down every request from the user for a time between the two numbers, inclusive. This mode is best used silently. Targeted users will simply think your forum or their Internet connection is being slow. They probably won't even say anything- but YOU will know. You will know every time they post or browse you are sucking their life away second by second.

Please Mark as Installed if you use this.
If you enjoy it please consider nominating it MOTM.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

It's something I may consider but have you tried the Miserable User's mod by Paul M? That has server timeouts and re-directs.

My goal here was only to slow people down, not "break" things on them.

You can (just) slow them down in MU if you want, its all optional.

I do like the infraction points idea.

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Paul M

You can (just) slow them down in MU if you want, its all optional.

I do like the infraction points idea.

Feel free to add infraction points options to MU.

The main reason I made this was so I could assign custom delays to specific users.

[Alan_SP]

Excellent idea. :up:

Would it be possible to divide infraction points? At the moment I have set them relatively high (first is 10 points, second 35...). If I could divide them by 10 and round it up it would be something. To use them as it is now for me this would make it too cruel.

So I would need divider to "normalize" infraction points, than to decide how many seconds every "normalized" infraction point lasts. Or change my whole infraction system, which also is a bit of a problem (not that I couldn't do this).

[BirdOPrey5]

Yeah, I will work on something to accommodate higher infraction points.

[cellarius]

Nice idea.

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

Yeah, I will work on something to accommodate higher infraction points.

Wouldn't, say, 0.5 as multiplier work? I mean, wouldn't that cut the time to half a second?

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by cellarius

Nice idea.

Wouldn't, say, 0.5 as multiplier work? I mean, wouldn't that cut the time to half a second?

Yes... it means I have to use the millisecond sleep function instead of the full second sleep function.

For VB4 it doesn't really matter, but for the VB3 version of this mod (which it was originally created for) the millisecond sleep function isn't supported on windows based systems before php 5.0 so for some people it may not have worked. But since VB4 requires php 5.2 this shouldn't be an issue in this version.

[cravendale]

Hi,

VB 4.0.6

Installed ok... but I can't turn it on. As soon as I save it, it shows as OFF.
I reinstalled and overwrite and it's the same.

Anyone help please?

thanks

[BirdOPrey5]

Do you have any working mods installed?

[cravendale]

Yes... quite a few.

[Alan_SP]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

Yeah, I will work on something to accommodate higher infraction points.

And if you could also add some offset. For example, lets say user have 50 points, and I don't want to punish him. I divide this with 10 (or use 0.1) so it gives 5 seconds. But with offset I could subtract 5 and this user has no slowdown.

Formula would be:

Infraction points * Time multiplayer - Offset = Actual slowdown.