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Interesting, as we just had a similar experience. A long-time Admin accidentally marked a member as spammer instead of changing his group. Thankfully, the member did not have a lot of posts and was very understanding about it. We could reinstate the account, but of course all content was lost. It would be very good if this option was restricted to a certain group(s) for newbies. I'm dealing with over 50,000 accounts that have been banned with under 3 post count in the first group. Very uncommon to have to deal with a spammer in any of the higher groups (more than 3 post count, in our case) -- and could easily be dealt with on a one-on-one basis.

Thanks so much! Great to know . . . now off to deal with all these spam accounts.

Thanks! This answers just about everything I was wondering. 🙂 One last question -- when the "Flag as Spammer" button is pushed, does the spam info get shared into the broad online spam prevention, in that way helping more than only Invision customers?

It's looking like this is a bug from the update, after the Member Title was moved into "Retained" fields. Here's a screenshot showing a member from another group -- which had custom member titles on all members in the group. Now, they are all showing the same info in "Rank" and "Member Title". The "Member Title" is editable in the AdminCP, but I cannot find a way to access the "Rank", which means that it cannot be removed. But I definitely need to be able to only use one or the other of these titles -- and it needs to be editable in AdminCP. Thanks for any suggestions! 🙂

Thanks so much! I read through that page, but it doesn't address the idea of deleting a spamming account. From what it says, the "Mark as Spammer" button will only delete content. So, is the best way to remove spammers to use the button to mark them, ban them and remove content -- then delete the account itself? We're working with a forum that's been around a long time and the spamming accounts may have been banned, but they've never been cleaned out. Something definitely needs to be done, but I just want to make sure that we decide on the right action before giving instructions to the staff.

Thanks, but I've seen that page. It's not much real info. It doesn't tell you what happens when you hit that button, what info is shared with whom, what the lasting consequences are, etc. For instance -- it says: If the worst happens and a spammer does make it into your community, Invision Community has a one-click spam cleanup process - simply go to the spammer's profile and click "Mark as Spammer". The user's account will be immediately banned, and all of their content will be removed. It's like they were never there. This just says that the "Mark as Spammer" button will ban an account? I'm looking for the best way to mark spammers, keep their e-mail addresses blocked and totally delete accounts to not taking up space in the system. But I have a feeling that the "like they were never there" just means removing content -- not actually removing accounts. I want them deleted like they were totally never there, but somehow marking the e-mail address for good. Thanks for the help!

Thanks to both of you for the information. We can now decide how to proceed with this. @Jim M When the spam info is sent, does Invision share this info with the online published lists of spamming e-mails, etc., so that all communities (not just Invision) benefit from the work?

A moderator inadvertently flagged a new member as a spammer. This has all been sorted out and the member reinstated in to the normal member group (his account was banned). However, we've cleared his Member Title in the profile area of the AdminCP, but on his public profile the title is showing as a "Rank" and shows the title of "Banned" in there. How do I delete that, since that profile field is showing as empty? Thanks. Added: Notice second attachment here as well. This seems to be something happening to all accounts in the "Inactive" group for banned members. All those accounts are showing both a Rank and a Member Title of "Banned". But I cannot find a way to edit the "Rank". It's not an option in Profile Fields. Please, help. Thanks!

Thanks for the answer. So, what is the benefit of using the "Flag as Spammer" option vs. just deleting the account? Is one a better option?

If you click the "Flag as Spammer" on a member's account, will it block the use of the e-mail address associated with the account? We have a lot of banned members who were identified as spammers and only have a post count of 0-3. Right now, the accounts are just banned --- leaving them in the system to make sure that no user with the same e-mail address can register again. However, I'd like to be able to delete those accounts. Would I be able to "Flag as Spammer" to remove all content, delete the account and record the e-mail address as blocked in the system? Thanks!

I thought that, too, so I've also tried a 100x100 pixel version -- which is what Invision says is the smallest necessary. Here's the file that I used there: But here's what it looks like as the button -- It's still fuzzy.

Oh, yes. Absolutely -- here it is.

Trying to get the Like Button to appear with a clear image. I've made a 500x500 pixel PNG image. It looks clear in every viewer I try it in, as well as in the uploaded area in the Admin CP -- but out on the public forum, it's very out of focus and fuzzy. This is the image I've created in Photoshop: This is what it looks like in the Admin CP after uploading: But this is what it looks like on the forum: How can I get the button in focus? Thanks!

I'll do that. Thanks.

Hopefully, this is an easy question, because I probably just don't have a setting right. But after installing the most current upgrade, a member is now able to login anonymously. They appear in the "Users Online" list like this: Our forum does not allow anonymous login or posting. The group that member is in has this setting on: Am I supposed to have settings elsewhere that also work to control this? Thanks!

Thanks so much! My mind was so sure it would be complicated, that I overlooked the obvious. Brilliant. I appreciate the help.

The fix by @Nathan Explosion was perfect . . . however, I have just noticed that the title now shows up in member profiles in the left-hand column under a whole division called "Retained". This is no good. Is there a way to get it back to where it was before in the "About" area?

Thank you for this. Works perfectly!

Is it possible to set our entire forum to show all category boards in the toggled mode? Currently, they look like this: Each user can click the toggle close arrow on the right and make the category appear this way: I'd like the forum front page to keep all categories permanently toggled, showing a description for each category. To access the sub-boards, I'd like members to have to click into the category to see only the sub-boards in there. Is that possible? Thanks!

Just thought of that late last night, so I've sent a message asking him to do that. We'll see what he says this morning!

We are having the same problem, and even though there is an option for filtering e-mail addresses, it doesn't work. I opened a support ticket about this a couple of days ago. The official answer is that there is no help. They only supply CAPTCHA, and that's that. You just have to delete the spam messages. Which is time consuming, considering the amount we're getting, at least. Going to have to put some time into figuring out a different way to allow members to access support. This is definitely a feature that should be fixed and updated sooner than later, IMO. This was the only answer from the support ticket: The only current spam mitigation we have on the contact form is the CAPTCHA. You can try a different CAPTCHA if you think bots are getting past the current CAPTCHA you're using.

The member who sent it is positive that it did say "sent", but it's not showing up anywhere. Is it possible to trace a PM in the database?

A member sent a lengthy Private Message to one of our Admins. However, the PM said "sent" when he clicked the "send" button (on an iPad). However, the message is not showing up either in his Sent box or the Admin's Inbox. Is there a way to retrieve this message?

That's it! Thanks! I just couldn't get it last night . . . probably working on this way too late. 🙂 Really appreciate the help.

Agreed. We have never had so many forum issues as we're having since this upgrade to 4.6. And way too many continual patches and upgrades for issues that should never have been released. It's very disappointing and taking our volunteer Admins a lot of time wasted trying to fix things. Hoping the new update goes well, but have to wait for multiple Tech Admins to be available to do it.