It is a lot simpler than the hellban hack (although not as extreme!) and does not have the problems of user being able to quote and view the post.
The user is unaware that they are banned. Nobody see's their posts either in the main thread view or when replying to a thread. Admins and mods see their original post with a notice they are banned. They see the thread as though they were a normal user. This fixes the problem of friends warning them they are banned.
Originally posted by Mutt it looked like the banned user would see no post at all instead of seeing the post unchanged.
Thanks for the addition to this hack.
BTW, there is one thing that would tip off the banned user that s/he is being banned. I tried a test and when banned using this method they can't post any new replies and it takes me to the standard not logged in or you are being banned by admins page.
Is there a way that a banned user can still post, but that goes immediately into hidden mode so no one else can see except the banned user. I think this way it will be more effective in secretly banning the abuser into thinking that everything is normal.
Originally posted by ezdreamer
I tried a test and when banned using this method they can't post any new replies and it takes me to the standard not logged in or you are being banned by admins page.
That's cos you haven't edited the permissions of whatever usergroup you used and set them to be able to browse and reply. Just set this usergroup to the same as your registered group and they will think everything is fine
Not yet, this looks like an oversite on my part. I'll look into this asap, but it's a bit difficult as I only have internet access at work at the moment, having just moved house. Cannot ftp to my shell account at the moment so cannot test any fixes.
If anyone else would like to try until I get connected at home, then feel free
At the moment, although normal members cannot see the secretly banned member's posts in show thread, they can see the post when the normal member clicks on Post Reply - the post still shows up in the Topic Review at the bottom of the page.
With this fix, when a member is secretly ban, no one else can see the secretly banned member's post in the Topic Review except for the member himself and staff. To everyone else, the person's post content in the Topic Review says "This member has been banned."
I have tested this and it works.
In newreply.php,
FIND:
PHP Code:
$posts=$DB_site->query("
SELECT IF(post.userid=0,post.username,user.username) AS username,
post.pagetext,post.allowsmilie,post.userid FROM post
LEFT JOIN user ON user.userid=post.userid
WHERE post.visible=1 AND post.threadid='$threadid'
ORDER BY dateline DESC");
REPLACE WITH:
PHP Code:
$posts=$DB_site->query("
SELECT IF(post.userid=0,post.username,user.username) AS username,
post.pagetext,post.allowsmilie,post.userid,usergroupid FROM post
LEFT JOIN user ON user.userid=post.userid
WHERE post.visible=1 AND post.threadid='$threadid'
ORDER BY dateline DESC");
(Basically finding out the usegroupid of the poster by adding the usergroupid field to the query).
This is a better fix than the one I posted here earlier - it works better - the previous one I posted here makes the secretly banned member's post ignored in the Topic Review, but with this one you have your own secretly banned member's template.