Banned Sub Forum

[Capt. John]

I want a sub forum to allow banned members to appeal about their ban and discuss, but reg. members/guests cannot see it,

how do i go about this?

[Arantor]

You basically can't without rewriting large parts of the ban system. SMF does not offer facilities that work in this fashion.

[TheDragon]

hmmm . perhaps make board for a limited membergroup
and re-assign the  banned members to JUST that new membergroup ?

[dimspace]

hmmm . perhaps make board for a limited membergroup
and re-assign the  banned members to JUST that new membergroup ?

thats the easiest solution, create a "banned" membergroup
only give them access to the "banned" forum section
and only give banned membergroup and admins/mods access to that board..

[xrunner]

hmmm . perhaps make board for a limited membergroup
and re-assign the  banned members to JUST that new membergroup ?

Right, except technically they can't be logically banned in the system and access a board. But you can effectively "ban" them (or relegate them) to a board specifically for miscreants. I have implemented this on several forums. It seems to work well. If they don't come around to understanding what they've done wrong, you can either ban them or place them on permanent moderation. I know, you wonder why I would do that? 

In my kind of forum work (so to speak) a ban to some of these people is like a medal of honor they can show off to their "side". So, I deny them that medal. 

[Arantor]

I guess I will say it again: IT DON'T WORK LIKE THAT.

Bans are applied straight after their groups are loaded (so admins can't ever be banned by a ban on their account, though they can on an IP address ban if they weren't logged in)

The types of ban are:
* no access
* no login
* no posting

Guess what the first one means? If you trigger it, you are banned from using the forum and you can't enter the board.

Guess what the second one means? If you trigger it, you will be logged back out again.

Guess what the third one means? You can't post in any board anywhere.

There is no way to make a ban system that works the way you want. The *nearest* thing you can do is to only *ever* enact post bans (or do it through the warning system) and then use the helpdesk, but even then it would be visible by groups rather than by some other status which means nasty hacking of that code (and frankly, the number of people in that group is minute)

In case anyone wonders what I mean... I've spent the previous month rewriting the entire warning system (which includes bans that trigger post moderation and post banning), and I'm not sure there's any good way to efficiently do this.

[Capt. John]

Yea, it is a lost cause, the banned members will have no place to appeal. Can you still PM while banned, or is that restricted as well?

[Arantor]

Gee let me think about that for a moment.

If you can't access the forum, you can't send PMs.

If you can't log into the forum, you can't send PMs.

The only debatable one for even a moment is post bans, but post bans include PM bans in SMF. I learned from this and in my rewrite I deliberately separated them out for that reason.

[Capt. John]

Gee let me think about that for a moment.

If you can't access the forum, you can't send PMs.

If you can't log into the forum, you can't send PMs.

The only debatable one for even a moment is post bans, but post bans include PM bans in SMF. I learned from this and in my rewrite I deliberately separated them out for that reason.

Don't be an asshole man, if you cannot answer others questions with courtesy, get off the support team, or don't even try to answer. End of story.

Kind Regards,

Capt. John.

[Arantor]

Don't be an asshole man, if you cannot answer others questions with courtesy, get off the support team, or don't even try to answer. End of story.

I wouldn't mind but I feel like I had to explain this multiple times because no-one read it the previous times.

[Capt. John]

Don't be an asshole man, if you cannot answer others questions with courtesy, get off the support team, or don't even try to answer. End of story.

I wouldn't mind but I feel like I had to explain this multiple times because no-one read it the previous times.

No problem man, just some forums allow PM'ing under a banned title, this one does not. All good, have a good day, thanks for the help man

[dimspace]

so you move them to the banned group for a week, and then ban them once its resolved..

it depends really why are they being suddenly banned outright. SMF allows for pretty decent warnings so you can place a troublesome member of moderated posts for a period of time, this continues to give them moderated access for however long you decide, and if at the end of that they continue and are banned, they really should be under no illusions why they were banned so they dont really need to discuss it.

So you put them on a warning level to make their postings moderated. discuss with them privately the reason and the likely ban if they continue..

then if they get banned they know why..

the ability to put users on moderated postings is actually excellent.. we use it for anything for a few hours (if its just two members who are kicking off and need to cool down, through to a week or more with shoutbox privaleges removed for more troublesome incidents)

failing that, they can always email you.

[xrunner]

we use it for anything for a few hours (if its just two members who are kicking off and need to cool down, through to a week or more with shoutbox privaleges removed for more troublesome incidents)

Just out of curiosity - what do members of your cycling forum get into that warrant a ban? 

On my forum I can easily explain why bans are used - it's theists against atheists and some will not do anything but preach and not give evidence ... 

[dimspace]

we use it for anything for a few hours (if its just two members who are kicking off and need to cool down, through to a week or more with shoutbox privaleges removed for more troublesome incidents)

Just out of curiosity - what do members of your cycling forum get into that warrant a ban? 

On my forum I can easily explain why bans are used - it's theists against atheists and some will not do anything but preach and not give evidence ... 

oh jeez..

rider x is a doper
i love rider x
i hate rider x
you hate him because hes belgian
no i hate him because hes a doper
youre racist
youre a fool
blah blah blah..

there is the odd lengthy argument on eastern european politics that gets out of hand..

we also run shoutboxes on race days, and despite cycling having its doping issues, in the last 20km we have rules on just enjoying the race and keeping the politics out of it, so users will occasionally be restricted for a few days for severe breaches that ruin other peoples enjoyment..

its the forums you dont expect have problems.. every seen war break out on a needlework forum over which stitch to use..

[Arantor]

For some reason I'm reminded of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygy7UDADXDg

[xrunner]

its the forums you dont expect have problems.. every seen war break out on a needlework forum over which stitch to use..

Somehow ... I expect such a needlework war could break out, given the right pre-conditions. 

[xrunner]

For some reason I'm reminded of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygy7UDADXDg

Bwahahahaha ! Right!

Monty Python - never been anything as good since. 

[Chen Zhen]

I want a sub forum to allow banned members to appeal about their ban and discuss, but reg. members/guests cannot see it,

how do i go about this?

Capt. John,

If you want some kind of easy one click option (or two including confirmation), imo perhaps put this in Mod Requests.

A modification could be created that for example creates a membergroup  named ie. Offenders that already has permissions set up to not allow them access to the rest of the forum except perhaps one board that the mod creates. Imo the mod would have to only allow this membergroup to PM the admin staff.
Also this board it creates would not be accessible to the rest of the membergroups except admins or moderators for that board.

It would need to put an option in their profile view (viewable for mods/admins) under ban user that says perhaps Add to ban group. 

It can be done if you're capable of creating your own project or as I have said you can put it in Mod Requests.
I do not believe anything exists to do this therefore those are your options.

[Arantor]

Well, creating the member group, setting it up so it's the only group with permissions to see/post into a given board (plus admins), plus all the attendant locking of other permissions (be it just PMs or only to that one board), that can all be done without any code changes by using membergroups as already pointed out.

Or you can go a bit further and use SimpleDesk which intentionally does not respect post bans (but has no control over harder bans) and then just post ban trouble users.

[Chen Zhen]

I do not believe anything exists to do this therefore those are your options.

.. as a one click option and with only allowing PM's from that membergroup to admins that is. The rest of what I stated would just be the mod automatically configuring certain database values so one would not have to set it up manually in the administration panel.