Banning people

[Gtastunting]

I noticed the topic about banning about 3 topics down, but judging by titles, mine is different.

Banning these days is pointless, any old schmuck knows how to use a Proxy or an Anonymous browsing website.

What else could Invision do to make banning more effective. I think they should look more in to this.

If anybody has any known methods about getting past the things I mentioned, please tell me.

- Gtastunting.com

[Strange_Will]

I noticed the topic about banning about 3 topics down, but judging by titles, mine is different.

Banning these days is pointless, any old schmuck knows how to use a Proxy or an Anonymous browsing website.

What else could Invision do to make banning more effective. I think they should look more in to this.

If anybody has any known methods about getting past the things I mentioned, please tell me.

- Gtastunting.com

Call his ISP, but you better be banning him for a good reason.

AKA: No high school or equivalent drama.

[U2 Fan]

Banning these days is pointless

I've always thought that, and I've never understood why "banning" even exists. It's a complete waste of time, IMHO.

[Cybertimber2009]

Banning is an option worth having where and when it works. Not everyone knows or would care to use a proxy/new account/changing ip. They could find a new forum to call home.

[Jaggi]

not every average joe trouble maker knows how to use a proxy and in most cases its a very useful method of getting people of your forums, i agree with the other post that the banning system should be more complete tho by banning the email and ip at the same time. Even if someone does want to get back in it still takes time to find a decent working proxy and to make a email account. Its not bullet proof but imo its not worthless either. With the freedom we get from the net it'll never be possible to completely ban someone whose determined but most the time people just wonder off after they've had their initial spout.

[C_ind]

the banning system should be more complete tho by banning the email and ip at the same time. Even if someone does want to get back in it still takes time to find a decent working proxy and to make a email account.

The emails of all members on a board are already "banned" in the sense that no one can register an account with an email that's already in the database. If you ban a member, his email continues to be as "banned" as every other member so he'd have to make another email account to sign up again. So it's just a matter of banning IP then, which probably isn't all that effective considering that many people don't get the same IP again when they log on.

[ellawella]

Email validation is what I consider to be the closest thing to an effective ban for one person - it's not impossible for banned users to re-register, but if they choose to do so, they will also have to go to the extra trouble of creating a new email account for themselves. I've found that requiring this extra step greatly discourages pests.

[RachelNA]

We have e-mail and admin validation.. mostly because of spambots, but sometimes I recognize banned names or e-mail accounts with slightly altered spelling. Sometimes I don't even like banning IPs and e-mails.. that way I at least know who they are when they sneak their way back in.

Banning isn't going to keep everyone from coming back, so to give people more incentive not to cause problems we have a few self-promoting user groups that give slightly better abilities and access to new boards. If anyone spams their way up, their post count and user group are reset.


With all that you would assume that if they have any kind of a life, they would either stop trying to come back or at least stop causing problems.

[Firez]

Is there anyway to make a banned user unable to come back?

[Digi]

No

[Strange_Will]

The best step in keeping people from causing trouble is to have a good community basis and a friendly environment.

I see mostly forums that have adminsitrators that abuse power have problems keeping banned members from coming back and starting trouble.

But forums that use proper procedures to try to steer the user in the right direction to becoming productive not only decrease the amount of troublemakers in general, but also see that using banning becomes a last resort, and if ever used, appealed after a short "cool down" time.


I've been on forums all over, possibly a hundred, banned from maybe 3-4. So I kind of know what goes, what upsets, whats awesome, what generally creates a good atmosphere for keeping trouble makers away. Look up alternatives to banning. I only have EVER banned bots, and had one trouble maker resign of his own accord (well... and possibly losing his job for trolling my site during work hours from his office at Intel...), so pretty much look at alternatives to banning and banning being a last resort, and try to make the ban on a positive note like "look, you need to reevaluate being here, we want productive members, and we want you to fit right in, cool down, come back later."


Just an idea.

[Digi]

Very well said :D

[nexosis]

I've always thought that, and I've never understood why "banning" even exists. It's a complete waste of time, IMHO.

what does IMHO mean?

[Stuart Elliott]

In my humble/honest opinion.

[skysober]

actually we use the Misery Mod - lol. (only avail on version less than 2.2 tho) This is 2000 times more effective than banning, as the lamer we want gone simply sees all sorts of timeouts and errors. It doesn't always work, but every tool in the arsenal helps ")

[W13]

The best step in keeping people from causing trouble is to have a good community basis and a friendly environment.

I see mostly forums that have adminsitrators that abuse power have problems keeping banned members from coming back and starting trouble.

But forums that use proper procedures to try to steer the user in the right direction to becoming productive not only decrease the amount of troublemakers in general, but also see that using banning becomes a last resort, and if ever used, appealed after a short "cool down" time.

I've been on forums all over, possibly a hundred, banned from maybe 3-4. So I kind of know what goes, what upsets, whats awesome, what generally creates a good atmosphere for keeping trouble makers away. Look up alternatives to banning. I only have EVER banned bots, and had one trouble maker resign of his own accord (well... and possibly losing his job for trolling my site during work hours from his office at Intel...), so pretty much look at alternatives to banning and banning being a last resort, and try to make the ban on a positive note like "look, you need to reevaluate being here, we want productive members, and we want you to fit right in, cool down, come back later."

Just an idea.

Very good. But if you run a forum like mine (a gaming-related one) where the average age of Members is 15 (with most members ranging from ages 9 to 18), it requires a HUGE moderating team and dozens of warnings, suspensions, bannings per day to keep at a relatively clean level.

We've had quite a few trouble makers (everything from spammers, spam bots, hackers, DDoS'ers, etc) - so the more effective banning is, the better. It needs to be very effective... with an optional 'ban' cookie being set (even though user logs out), all used IPs in past week ban, user-ban, etc.

Also, and more importantly, the banning system needs to be INTELLIGENT. Right now, all the brainy work has to be done by humans... finding other members that possibly match the IP, checking to see how often the IP is changed in the past, checking to see if the IP resolves to a home (residential) connection (it often reads something like 203-cit2034.res.ny.rr.net , etc.) or if it's possibly a school (.edu) or library or work (i.e. dhsh2d.corp.axia.net), - all this before actually banning the IP. And then, manually pruning old IPs from the banned IP list.

A smart system will take a simple input ("Ban user: 30293") - the intelligent banning system will first change usergroup to 'Banned'. Then, it'll set a 'ban' cookie next time user visits. Upon that visit, the latest IP will be recorded. The IP address will then be checked - to make sure other people aren't logging in from that IP (imagine banning somebody from the country of Bahrain- where the entire country has just ONE IP address!!!), then, banning that IP and automatically unbanning it after 30 days (since after 30 days, DHCP would've likely updated it anyways). Also, if the user is it return (with the same 'ban' cookie set), with a new IP, that new IP will also be banned (after being checked to make sure you aren't banning an entire library or something).

[GamingAddix]

Is there anyway to make a banned user unable to come back?

not FULL PROOF no, but you can make it alot harder, you can ban their hostname in htaccess, and theres some mod that can do it too

[Mark]

actually we use the Misery Mod - lol. (only avail on version less than 2.2 tho) This is 2000 times more effective than banning, as the lamer we want gone simply sees all sorts of timeouts and errors. It doesn't always work, but every tool in the arsenal helps ")

Normally I'd go for Will's approach, but trolls do exist, and sometimes, you can't get rid of them.
I have to agree that the misery mod has never failed me, just don't set the limits too high, something like 1-3 404s per visit, gradually increasing is enough to drive someone away permenatly. Though that shouldn't be done for everyone, just extreme cases.