Place user in the banned group after flagging as spammer

[Sonya*]

Global moderators can flag users as spammer in their profiles. This action is reported to the IPS Spam Monitor if community has activated it. However, for the community it is not enough as the restrictions for the spammer are not consequent throughout the applications. E. g. users still can load images in the gallery or comment in blogs, they also can use 3rd party applications that rely on group and permissions and not on the spammer flag.

We spend a lot of time to configure banned user group but it is not used for spammers automatically. Instead after flagging, moderators should go to ACP, find the user there and place him into the banned group. This 2-step-procedure (flagging in profile and banning in ACP) is annoying for moderators and thus they tend to just ban the user omitting the flagging. They just save the first step.

However, not flagging the user means that IPS Spam Monitor does not get report for the user and thus the user is not marked as spammer in Spam Monitor. This way the communities combat with spammers alone.

Please, give us an ability to put the user into the banned group after flagging as spammer optionally.

[AlexWright]

Funny, I thought that the -and ban account- option banned the account across all active applications? Does it not work like it is suppose to?

[Aiwa]

As I recall, it doesn't ban the account by putting it in the banned group. Been a while since I've had to use it though. Spam service FTW.

[Sonya*]

Funny, I thought that the -and ban account- option banned the account across all active applications? Does it not work like it is suppose to?

No. It does not change the user group, just flag him as spammer and that is not enough.

Been a while since I've had to use it though. Spam service FTW.

We have more than 35000 active users a day. And we are non-English. Spam service is not enough for us, however it is perfect for small to middle English boards.

[CalendarOfUpdates]

As I recall, it doesn't ban the account by putting it in the banned group. Been a while since I've had to use it though. Spam service FTW.

That is correct. The "Banned Group" has been deprecated. Now when you ban an account, a flag is put on the account marking them as banned. It does the same thing as moving an account to the old "Banned Group" but just does not visually indicate they are banned on the front end.

I made a simple skin hook for my sites that shows to mods if the account is banned (mods and admins are the only ones that really need to know this information anyway IMO).

[Sonya*]

It does the same thing as moving an account to the old "Banned Group" but just does not visually indicate they are banned on the front end.

No, it does not. As I have stated above, it is not consistent in IPB. Users marked as spammers can comment, upload images in gallery, use 3rd party applications, can log out and so on. We have configured banned group to prevent banned users to do anything in our community. And we would like to use this group for spammers to be in. If IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, IP.Content, IP.Chat, IP.Tracker and all 3rd party application would use this flag everywhere this would be great, but they do not.

[CalendarOfUpdates]

No, it does not. As I have stated above, it is not consistent in IPB. Users marked as spammers can comment, upload images in gallery, use 3rd party applications, can log out and so on. We have configured banned group to prevent banned users to do anything in our community. And we would like to use this group for spammers to be in. If IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, IP.Content, IP.Chat, IP.Tracker and all 3rd party application would use this flag everywhere this would be great, but they do not.

Sounds like you don't have your settings correct then. Hitting the mark as spammer can certainly ban an account and they will get no further than a screen telling them they don't have permission to access.

[Sonya*]

Sounds like you don't have your settings correct then. Hitting the mark as spammer can certainly ban an account and they will get no further than a screen telling them they don't have permission to access.

You can see 3 options on the screen I have added above.
The second option is set by default and does not prevent user to commit content in the community at the places I have described.
The last option does prevent user to access the whole content and forces him to register again to be able to read.
Our banned group is able to read the content, but is not able to write anything. They act just like guests and everyone can see they are banned, so that other members, guests, moderators, everyone knows that the spammer has been recognized by us and do not report him again and again.

[CalendarOfUpdates]

You can see 3 options on the screen I have added above.

The second option is set by default and does not prevent user to commit content in the community at the places I have described.

The last option does prevent user to access the whole content and forces him to register again to be able to read.

Our banned group is able to read the content, but is not able to write anything. They act just like guests and everyone can see they are banned, so that other members, guests, moderators, everyone knows that the spammer has been recognized by us and do not report him again and again.

Hmm, well mine has 4 options when a moderator hits the flag as spammer button:

Do nothing
disable post/pm permission
disable post/pm permission and unapprove posts
unapprove posts, empty profile and ban account.

[Sonya*]

Hmm, well mine has 4 options when a moderator hits the flag as spammer button:

Do nothing

disable post/pm permission

disable post/pm permission and unapprove posts

unapprove posts, empty profile and ban account.

Mine also, see the screen above. The 5th option has been added by me as desired :smile:

unapprove posts, empty profile and ban account - does prevent user to get to the content and thus force him to register again producing clone accounts. Banned group would not prevent him to read the content and would inform everyone on the board that his is banned.

[Breadfan]

Would it make a difference if user was banned using the Warn panel?

[CalendarOfUpdates]

No. I see what he is asking for now. His banned group is not really banned just prevented from posting or or making comments. Don't disagree to being able to move a to another member group. I got confused because he kept referring to banning and that not what he really wants.

[Sonya*]

He is "she" :) And yes, banned and flagging as spammer is not the same in IPB to some reason. For me banned user is someone who is in the banned group where I can precisely define what he is allowed and what not. And It is up to me how I configure this group.

Just found this issue http://community.invisionpower.com/tracker/issue-34667-flagging-member-as-spam/ talking about weird "flagged as spammer" and "banned group". Can you define the difference between banned group and flagging as spammer in IPB?

[CalendarOfUpdates]

No offence intended and yes there is inconstancy in some areas per that open bug report that has been acknowledge by IPS.

The banned group is legacy from the old way of banning where you put them in a group with a restricted permission mask. You used to only be able to ban from the ACP by moving them to the banned group. You actually can do this still if you ban via the ACP.

A banned member now is a flag set on the members account.

A member marked as a spammer has a flag set on the account.

I have no problem with your suggestion and support it now that I understand what you are requesting and it looks like IPS is looking into it per the bug report you posted above. I would like to be able to automatically change the members usergroup when I mark a member as spammer from the front end.

[Mark]

Selecting the option to ban a user will ban them (that is, they will not be able to access any area of the community), but it will not move them to the banned group which is indeed no longer required as such.