Unfortunately, we recently had to ban a member of our forum due to multiple offenses of our community guidelines, however, we would like the community members to still be able to view the banned profile page as our moderation team left an explanation there as to the general causes behind the ban (and if anyone wanted to view their prior content that was still on the site).

Currently, as far as our admin team can figure out, when the user is banned with the ban tool or put into a group that can't access the site their profile can't be accessed by members and gives that error code 2C138/U. The admins and moderators can still see the profile, but our regular members cannot.

Using our test accounts for these items, we tried putting one just under the ban, profile didn't work. We tried putting it just under a member group that can't access the site, profile didn't work. We tried putting the profile under a member group that could access the site but with limited abilities which can still see more then we want, so not effective as alternative to banning, and profile works.

Is there a method we don't know about that allows us to fully ban a member, but still have their profile visible to the rest of the community?

Hi @Joel Rainey

What you might consider is creating a usergroup ('Suspended', or some such) with no effective permissions and assign this as the Primary usergroup to the banned account and with no secondary usergroups.

Actually, @Joel Rainey, you can use the moderate function, 'Restrict from posting content' and use the 'indefinitely' option.

Another thought. If you wish to leave open the door for your banned members, and if you make use of 'users can see topics posted by other users?' for a forum, you might provide the option for the member to access this single space where they might plead their case for account reinstatement. And you can still change their moderate option to prevent them from posting to this contact space if they abuse it.

2 hours ago, Como said:

Hi @Joel Rainey

What you might consider is creating a usergroup ('Suspended', or some such) with no effective permissions and assign this as the Primary usergroup to the banned account and with no secondary usergroups.

This was what we tried to do initially, and regardless of what we named the group (Suspended, Banned, Bad), if we fully restricted access to the site, which is our goal, then other users simply got the following screen when they try to access the profile:

2 hours ago, Como said:

Actually, @Joel Rainey, you can use the moderate function, 'Restrict from posting content' and use the 'indefinitely' option.

Another thought. If you wish to leave open the door for your banned members, and if you make use of 'users can see topics posted by other users?' for a forum, you might provide the option for the member to access this single space where they might plead their case for account reinstatement. And you can still change their moderate option to prevent them from posting to this contact space if they abuse it.

I tested this option out, and if we just use the 'Restrict from posting content', the banned user still has access to all the pages on the forum, they just can't post anywhere, which is not the route we would like to take, especially given some concerns around plagerism. Given the fact that our moderation team has been working with the member for nearly a year in regards to the guideline offenses, the banning was the final step in discipline and can't be appealed.

If the hiding of the profile is more of a feature of the banning/restricting from the site rather than a bug, we can work around it, we just thought potentially with the error code, there might be something wrong.

3 minutes ago, Marc said:

Do you have any 3rd party items running there. Banning someone would not usually mean that the profile can no longer be viewed.

The only 3rd Party items or plugins we're running is uStatus to provide status updates on Invision 5.

@Marc

36 minutes ago, Marc said:

Do you have any 3rd party items running there. Banning someone would not usually mean that the profile can no longer be viewed.

It is my understanding that @Joel Rainey would like members to still be able to view the profile of the banned member.

12 hours ago, Joel Rainey said:

Is there a method we don't know about that allows us to fully ban a member, but still have their profile visible to the rest of the community?

@Joel Rainey

57 minutes ago, Joel Rainey said:

If the hiding of the profile is more of a feature of the banning/restricting from the site rather than a bug, we can work around it, we just thought potentially with the error code, there might be something wrong.

The accounts of banned members cannot be viewed by members. The only access is via the ACP.

Edited September 23Sep 23 by Como

Have just spoken to a colleague on this, and this is indeed intentional.

2 hours ago, Como said:

@Marc

It is my understanding that @Joel Rainey would like members to still be able to view the profile of the banned member.

@Joel Rainey

The accounts of banned members cannot be viewed by members. The only access is via the ACP.

1 hour ago, Marc said:

Have just spoken to a colleague on this, and this is indeed intentional.

Thank you guys for the help!