I have a member who I had to sanction to a moderated post level. She has become angry and told me she was going to start another account to get around the sanction.
She did that and I banned that account and removed the new account posts. The ban included the original account IP as well--those used by both accounts.
Then I went to officially ban the other account. She has 16K posts and was with the forum almost since the inception in 2010. Her list of IPS used was LOOOONG. I began at the bottom and started checking them of by touch one-at-a-time--I did not see a select all option. After a few minutes I decided to add those I had checked in case I lost something while working...and was going to come back and continue.
Well, now I cannot find the user in a search to add the other IPs. How do I do this?
This person used to be a part of my Mentor/Advisory Team and did a lot of our behind the scenes work like archiving threads. She did this for years. She stepped down maybe 2 years ago. She was not asked to step down, but she was becoming difficult and it was leading to that. Since leaving the team she has become more difficult--her posts can simply be mean or inappropriate and rude to others. Given that she threated to and then started a second account, I expect her to continue to make things difficult and am trying to take swift action.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The odds are that you don't really need all those IPs in the ban - you could list all the IPs I've used in the last 10 years but it wouldn't help you given that it would include the multiple different places I've lived and countless IPs from mobile.
As long as the current IPs are banned, you're probably OK for the time being - just watch out for new accounts that seem overly knowledgeable and back-seat moderating (trying to tell you how to run the show without being moderators). If they're really that angry, the odds are it won't take long for them to out themselves on a new account.
Forget using IP addresses as an index to identify a user - won't work.
Instead, allow the user to wander your forum. However, install and apply the following mod, as a discouragement to that member :)
https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=565438
(I thought Arantor had written a free version but cannot locate it right now)
Lol. :D
There are also other tricks you can play on them. I once wrote some code to mess with their signatures if you want to do that.
Quote from: Shambles on October 12, 2019, 06:10:34 PM
(I thought Arantor had written a free version but cannot locate it right now)
All of my mods have been removed, and likely will not return.
Thanks guys. I've contacted the mod creator about that mod.
I did think the list of IPS was exeedingly long...but it said recent at the top. How does it define recent? That was what I was basing it on was that it said they were recent, but the list was so long that I spent 5+ minutes touching the checkboxes and barely made a dent in the scroll bar.
Is there a way I can access the account of the banned members? I can understand why a banned person would not show up on the member list for general users, but as the owner I would think I could have access.
What do you mean 'access the account of the banned members'? You can still go to their profile if you know the user id, or you find a post they've made and go to the profile from there.
Looks like she's using a vpn (proton), you may be able to block vpns with your firewall.
Quote from: Arantor on October 12, 2019, 06:50:14 PM
What do you mean 'access the account of the banned members'? You can still go to their profile if you know the user id, or you find a post they've made and go to the profile from there.
Oh DUH! I should have thought of that. I was just trying to go to member search.
Quote from: Sir Osis of Liver on October 12, 2019, 11:24:55 PM
Looks like she's using a vpn (proton), you may be able to block vpns with your firewall.
Okay, how?
Do I want to do that--how many other users might be using a VPN--are they common or will using them become more common?
What is a VPN--I know it stands for Virtual Private Network, but don't really know what that means.
I use Proton vpn, it has a widget in system tray that toggles it on/off if I get a slow server or a site that's blocking vpns (some do). It's similar to Tor, connects you via a random server when you boot up, and ip can be changed at any time. That's how she's getting around the ip bans. I use random US, that's approx 50 ips, and they have hundreds of servers if you select random international. You may be able to block vpns with the anti-spam firewall you're running, else you can ask your host if they can block them. No idea how many members may be using them, you can run a poll and ask. If you decide to block them, you could post an announcement advising your members what you're doing, they should be able to disable vpn pretty easily when accessing your forum. If she switches to Tor it will be more difficult to block. There are several scripts that block Tor, but none that I tried are bulletproof. Liroy was talking about blocking it here, but don't think it was ever done. It got pretty crappy in recent years due to a lot of spammer traffic, and lot of their nodes are blacklisted, so it's not likely she'd want to use it.