Better representation of a banned user

[Chippy365]

Hi there,

I wonder if it would be possible to add a little shield or indication for when a user is banned? We've found recently that users can't see if a user is temporarily suspended and I feel it would be a very useful feature to have within the software

[Joy Rex]

You could create a Banned user group and move them into that group so it clearly indicates the member is banned.

[CoffeeCake]

3 minutes ago, Joy Rex said:

You could create a Banned user group and move them into that group so it clearly indicates the member is banned.

Good idea, Joy Rex, yet I don't believe this is an option with the warning system. It would require an extra step in admincp to move the member, and then an extra step and manual follow up when the member is no longer banned if set for a period of time.

It would be nice to be able to provide an indicator that Member X is on hiatus for a little while for losing their cool.

[RocketStang]

I have a Banned group in my forum that came over from my old MyBB conversion...all the members are tagged with the IPB Banned tag but they are also in a group with a custom group icon.  But yeah, as mentioned above...I would have to manually move newly banned members into the group which is not an option for me either.  Now I have to decide to delete the banned members and banned group or try to move the banned members into the member group and see if they continue to keep banned status?

Following for more ideas...

[CoffeeCake]

3 hours ago, RocketStang said:

Now I have to decide to delete the banned members and banned group or try to move the banned members into the member group and see if they continue to keep banned status?

If you see that the member is banned in the admin CP (red notice when you look at the user), then you know the ban status was successfully converted from MyBB and you can safely move them into the members group. They will retain the banned status, regardless of usergroup.

[Morrigan]

I prefer the shadow ban status. My members don't need to know if I've banned someone. Its none of their business. I don't need them nosing in on someone elses' business either.

[CoffeeCake]

15 hours ago, Morrigan said:

I prefer the shadow ban status. My members don't need to know if I've banned someone. Its none of their business. I don't need them nosing in on someone elses' business either.

I agree that this is ideal in some communities, yet there are others where it is not. I would propose that any change be configurable, yet there is a clear need in some communities to be more transparent about who and what is restricted.

[Morrigan]

1 minute ago, Paul E. said:

I agree that this is ideal in some communities, yet there are others where it is not. I would propose that any change be configurable, yet there is a clear need in some communities to be more transparent about who and what is restricted.

I disagree. If you need it to be more noticeable then take the extra steps to move banned members into a banned group, make their restrictions heavy or remove all access to everything. That shouldn't be on IPS on how heavy handed or flashy you want to be to your banned users. They provide the means to remove the banned users access to your community. How you display that should be on you.

[CoffeeCake]

2 hours ago, Morrigan said:

I disagree.

I suppose we can agree to disagree? @Chippy365 has a use case for this and so may others, I'm sure. I know that this feature has gone away after converting from a competitor's product and that the membership on my community would like it back. At least with Xenforo, there's two modifications that are available for this behavior:

• Show ban information on postbit: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ozzmodz-show-banned.7701/
• Show list of banned members: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/andrew-banned-users-list.7572/

With other platforms, the functionality is built in (vBulletin).

I love the workaround for moving usergroups, yet that's not practical when there's a need for cool off periods through the warning system, and where moderators may be limited to not have the ability to adjust usergroups. I don't believe there's a permission to only allow a moderator to move into a banned usergroup and no others. I suppose if there were a way to do group promotions that used warning data as a trigger, then yes. And maybe this is as simple as a template change or similar. Not sure.

There are plenty of features that IPS has that my particular community doesn't have a need for and that I have turned off or don't use, and there will always be edge cases that are impractical for all but a few. As we talk about features and ideas that fellow administrators share, I find it interesting to hear more from those that have a perceived need to determine if it's something that would benefit the greater community of IPS license holders over those that wouldn't take advantage of a newly introduced option.

[Chippy365]

19 hours ago, Morrigan said:

I prefer the shadow ban status. My members don't need to know if I've banned someone. Its none of their business. I don't need them nosing in on someone elses' business either.

With respect, that's great for you and works for you. The system does not work for us.
There is no functionality within the reports system for moderators to acknowledge that a report has been dealt with or allows a message to be sent to the person reporting.
When a user has been given a timeout during a heated discussion, users continue to reply and don't realise the person has been banned for a week - which causes users to think that the moderators are not taking any action upon reports - when they are.

Now, yes, you could say that moderators could PM the user who gave the report with a response - but IPB allows the PM system to be turned off and our community don't want the PM system enabled.

Because many people receive a timeout from the community for minor infractions, moving users to a "banned group" just is not feasible as it would require us to keep a track of the time that people have been banned for and move people back etc.

Again, we could make a big song and dance with moderators going in to a thread and saying they've banned someone - but that then gives the banned person the notoriety they want and contirbutes to derailing a thread.

Given that IPS have introduced a "shield" to determine whether a user is a moderator or not, I don't see how that is much different to the use case I have provided.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Chippy365

[Morgin]

50 minutes ago, Chippy365 said:

There is no functionality within the reports system for moderators to acknowledge that a report has been dealt with or allows a message to be sent to the person reporting.
When a user has been given a timeout during a heated discussion, users continue to reply and don't realise the person has been banned for a week - which causes users to think that the moderators are not taking any action upon reports - when they are.

Now, yes, you could say that moderators could PM the user who gave the report with a response - but IPB allows the PM system to be turned off and our community don't want the PM system enabled.

As a bit of an aside, @Adriano Faria developed this plugin for me to handle sending PMs to members who reported messages to let them know action had been taken.

My specifications asked for it to use the PM system to send a reply, but as I've used this, I've discovered that a better approach would have been to use the notification system - send a notification once the report is submitted to say "we've received your report- thanks!" and then send a notification once action is taken to be like "your report has been actioned - thanks for helping keep the community friendly" or something like that. People don't need a PM persay, they just need some visual indicator that their report didn't go into the ether.  It might be worth seeing if Adriano would be willing to enhance this plugin to let you choose between using the PM system and using notifications. Doesn't get you all the way there of having a badge for showing a user is banned, but might be helpful regardless.

[Chippy365]

In fairness, I posted the topic because I felt the idea of a little badge that says when a user has been banned would be better suited for being in the native application rather than trying to work around it with plugins etc, but it's helpful 🙂

It would arguably be of more use than having a moderator badge when there are group names in the post 🙂

[Morgin]

I’ll be honest, I suspect (but of course do not know for sure) that one thing that helps show the IPS team if a feature would be in high demand or useful is adoption of workarounds or plugin solutions. So, while I agree I would love more use of the notification system for users generally as a core feature (IMO it really provides immediate feedback and engagement), I would urge you to try this out if you have the means to buy it and provide feedback. I think if we could show the IPS team that there is high demand for this sort of feature, there’s a better likelihood of it being adopted into core. For what it’s worth, I can also vouch for @Adriano Fariaas being an amazingly responsive developer, and to the extent we could show enough interest in the plugin to justify him spending time to enhance it, then also a better chance we could essentially build this feature out as a proof of concept. I agree with you though, I think it’s a great feature and a great way to engage users. 

[RocketStang]

Aren't there some kind of badges on the bottom of avatars in 4.5?  Maybe they could be utilized for a banned tag of some type?  Look at the tag on my avatar...it even has a nice tool tip explaining what it is.

 

ETA...Jumping ahead, I guess...this might be an option for 4.5 but not current builds, LOL!

Edited June 25, 2020 by RocketStang

[Morrigan]

I guess that's more in how you handle your moderating business. Once something is reported on any community I've ever ran or been a part of, its out of the users hands. The actions taken to fix/rectify/and or punish the user is on the staff.

I feel like you take privacy out of banned users hands when you tell your users ANYTHING about something reported. This sort of behavior leads to really toxic and generally mean and vindictive communities that I've seen.

I think of banning someone sort of like getting divorced. People may know that the papers have been served but no one needs to know if the papers have been signed, but if they figure it out or find out, great! But they still don't need to know what happened in the courtroom or what the judge deemed to be the results of the divorce.

I respect that you run your communities differently and you provide that dirty information to your members but it may be something that just requires a thought and retraining your members/staff by changing how your staff and moderators deal with reports in general. Unless there is something that is required from the original reporter (IE a harassment claim) there should never be more contact with them then their original report. Its on you to read, understand and determine if action needs to be taken (sometimes there doesn't need to be any action taken).

Everyone comments on how we need to be more like social media outlets and how people are more familiar with that mode of operation. I don't know of a social media outlet that reports back on a report of misconduct and normally the only way you know someone is banned is by logging out. Because a lot of them still let you post but hide or remove all of your content instead of dealing with the backlash of someone knowing that they are banned.

The above is why I believe that this doesn't need to be core.

[Lindy]

Naturally, we try to consider anything that gains traction, however, this goes against the grain of every aspect of life. No where else that I'm aware of, other than "old school" forums, are those that have been subjected to disciplined paraded in front of the public with a naughty tag. I'm not aware of any social media platform that indicates a user has been banned or disciplined. Imagine getting a sticker placed on your car after getting a speeding ticket to let the world know you had your hand slapped. We are not likely to incorporate any feature that promotes public humiliation of members. 

As a tip for moderation - if content is being reported and you find it rises to the level of banning a user, the usual course of action would be to remove the offending content. You cited letting users know someone has been banned so they stop replying, but removing the content would accomplish this as well. 

If you're insistent on this, please consider using a third party resource or custom user group is likely your best option. You are, however, likely going to receive a higher number of GDPR "right to be forgotten" requests if you start publicly shaming your members for moderation actions taken. 

[Chippy365]

2 minutes ago, Lindy said:

Naturally, we try to consider anything that gains traction, however, this goes against the grain of every aspect of life. No where else that I'm aware of, other than "old school" forums, are those that have been subjected to disciplined paraded in front of the public with a naughty tag. I'm not aware of any social media platform that indicates a user has been banned or disciplined. Imagine getting a sticker placed on your car after getting a speeding ticket to let the world know you had your hand slapped. We are not likely to incorporate any feature that promotes public humiliation of members. 

As a tip for moderation - if content is being reported and you find it rises to the level of banning a user, the usual course of action would be to remove the offending content. You cited letting users know someone has been banned so they stop replying, but removing the content would accomplish this as well. 

If you're insistent on this, please consider using a third party resource or custom user group is likely your best option. You are, however, likely going to receive a higher number of GDPR "right to be forgotten" requests if you start publicly shaming your members for moderation actions taken. 

You've basically hit the nail on the head - this is an old school forum that has existed for years and years where a certain style of moderation has been accepted by the community.

I take the points on board with respect to moderation etc. - but believe me, moving the community from PHPBB to IPB was hard enough and required reassurances that the rules, moderation etc would remain the same. It turns out a community of 30-50 year old men really do not like any change! 😂

Lindy - How customisable are the little badges? I note that there are badges for new members and moderators, but if it's possible to customise the badges that could so the issue somewhat.

[CoffeeCake]

2 hours ago, Morgin said:

As a bit of an aside, @Adriano Faria developed this plugin for me to handle sending PMs to members who reported messages to let them know action had been taken.

For us, we considered this plugin, and it sounds like we have a similar userbase to @Chippy365. We also restrict private messages and instead use the commerce support system, which offers the benefit of being visible to any moderator in the queue.

In an ideal world, we'd respond to reported posts via a support queue ticket.

3 minutes ago, Lindy said:

No where else that I'm aware of, other than "old school" forums, are those that have been subjected to disciplined paraded in front of the public with a naughty tag. I'm not aware of any social media platform that indicates a user has been banned or disciplined. Imagine getting a sticker placed on your car after getting a speeding ticket to let the world know you had your hand slapped. We are not likely to incorporate any feature that promotes public humiliation of members. 

This would not be our use case. Instead, we'd use language to notate that the member did not have an active account. The purpose would not be for shaming, nor to show that they had been disciplined, but rather to indicate the account is currently, for whatever reason, not active. This is something I think that should be visible, optionally, at the profile level and post bit level.

In fact, in our install, we remove the word "banned" entirely, along with "warning" and other out-of-the-box language that is suggestive of someone doing something "bad." What I agree with @Chippy365 on is that having the ability to show that an account is not able to create new posts at present would be a feature we'd use. This is clearly not something that would fit every community, but for ours it would be.

[Chippy365]

1 minute ago, Paul E. said:

For us, we considered this plugin, and it sounds like we have a similar userbase to @Chippy365. We also restrict private messages and instead use the commerce support system, which offers the benefit of being visible to any moderator in the queue.

In an ideal world, we'd respond to reported posts via a support queue ticket.

This would not be our use case. Instead, we'd use language to notate that the member did not have an active account. The purpose would not be for shaming, nor to show that they had been disciplined, but rather to indicate the account is currently, for whatever reason, not active. This is something I think that should be visible, optionally, at the profile level and post bit level.

In fact, in our install, we remove the word "banned" entirely, along with "warning" and other out-of-the-box language that is suggestive of someone doing something "bad." What I agree with @Chippy365 on is that having the ability to show that an account is not able to create new posts at present would be a feature we'd use. This is clearly not something that would fit every community, but for ours it would be.

Actually this is a good point. We often have users who for whatever reason, want their account suspending so they can focus on something else - a couple of decades ago it used to be members at university wanting to focus on exams, what we have now is usually members going on holiday who don't want to be able to access the forum while on holiday with their family 😂

It doesn't necessarily need to be a "banned" badge, just a badge to say they are unable to reply for a longer period than would be normal. Being able to customise the badges and when they are applied would be really useful and would have a larger use case than the ones that we would use it for.

[CoffeeCake]

18 minutes ago, Lindy said:

I'm not aware of any social media platform that indicates a user has been banned or disciplined.

As an aside, all of the major social media platforms I've ever seen will show that a particular account has been suspended upon navigating to a profile page. I can't think of an instance where this is not the case.

[Chippy365]

Just now, Paul E. said:

As an aside, all of the major social media platforms I've ever seen will show that a particular account has been suspended upon navigating to a profile page. I can't think of an instance where this is not the case.

Twitter being a perfect example of one.

[Morgin]

2 hours ago, Morrigan said:

I feel like you take privacy out of banned users hands when you tell your users ANYTHING about something reported. This sort of behavior leads to really toxic and generally mean and vindictive communities that I've seen.

I agree in part. With the plugin I asked Adriano to develop, the intent was not to share any information about what the outcome of the report was (especially if it led to suspending another user), but to provide an ability to easily thank or communicate gratitude to the reporter. The vast majority of my reports aren’t related to specific user infractions - usually it’s reporting spam, mistakes, double posts, etc. I liked the idea of trying to generate more faith in the reporting system but not making it such a black hole. I will say 90+% of the use I get from it is sending a default thanks message for reporting spam. Just a nice touch that lets people know their report mattered and improved the community. It’s a bit of a feedback loop too - the more people feel like the reporting system actually matters, the more they use it, and the better my community is. Everyone wins!

I will say too that this is similar to what Facebook and Twitter do. If you report a tweet, you eventually get confirmation when an action is made. This is helpful to know whether there is any value in using reporting tools or not. 

[optrexnz]

7 hours ago, Lindy said:

No where else that I'm aware of, other than "old school" forums, are those that have been subjected to disciplined paraded in front of the public with a naughty tag.

Twitter

[jesuralem]

Hi there,

@Chippy365 did you find a solution ?

I used to have banned members visible in vbulletin and i have to say it would be nice to have a similar feature. Ideally with 2 badges "temp banned and "banned". My idea is just that other members seing that someone was banned would incite them to behave.

Also, people need to know there is no point expecting an answer or a pm from a banned member...

I would be willing to pay a few bucks for a plugin like this 🙂

[Chippy365]

On 10/19/2020 at 8:16 AM, jesuralem said:

Hi there,

@Chippy365 did you find a solution ?

I used to have banned members visible in vbulletin and i have to say it would be nice to have a similar feature. Ideally with 2 badges "temp banned and "banned". My idea is just that other members seing that someone was banned would incite them to behave.

Also, people need to know there is no point expecting an answer or a pm from a banned member...

I would be willing to pay a few bucks for a plugin like this 🙂

 

Unfortunately not - moderators are instead editing the post that gets a user banned to say that the user has been banned for the particular post. It's not ideal but at least users are aware the user has been banned so they don't expect a reply anymore.