Birtday messages to banned members

[Black Tiger]

Just discovered that a "happy birthday" message was send to a user which was banned.

Is the mechanisme not checking the status of a user before sending an email?
I did not expect the software to send anything to banned members.

Can this be fixed (except by upgrading to 2.1.x)?

[Illori]

looks to me like it is checked if the user is activated and not banned already. how do you know a banned user got a birthday email?

There is no documentation.

What I can tell you is this:

0 - pending activation
1 - active
2 - I think this is for members who were active and changed their email
3 - never encountered this
4 - pending deletion
5 - pending COPPA form completion

Add 10 if the user is banned.

Code Select Expand

// So who are the lucky ones?  Don't include those who are banned and those who don't want them.
$result = $smcFunc['db_query']('', '
SELECT id_member, real_name, lngfile, email_address
FROM {db_prefix}members
WHERE is_activated < 10
AND MONTH(birthdate) = {int:month}
AND DAYOFMONTH(birthdate) = {int:day}
AND notify_announcements = {int:notify_announcements}
AND YEAR(birthdate) > {int:year}',
array(
'notify_announcements' => 1,
'year' => 1,
'month' => $month,
'day' => $day,
)
);

the code has

Code Select Expand

WHERE is_activated < 10 and <10 are banned users so they should not receive the email.

[Dav999]

This 10 is only getting added with a full ban, not with a "can't login" ban or a postban.

[Black Tiger]

how do you know a banned user got a birthday email?

Because I got an undeliverable mail message from my mailer daemon that the email address did not exist anymore.
In those cases I check the last time the user logged in and then I saw that it was a banned user.

Ah I might have found the cause. This user registered beginning last year.
After I banned him this year by giving him a full ban, I also blocked the email domain he used from registering by a bantrigger and called that trigger "temp email".
At this moment SMF says the user is banned as result of a ban called "temp email".

However, when I click his account and choose "ban this user" it says by default "full ban". Even if I click this now and save it, and have a look at the user account, it still says that it's banned by the temp email trigger.

So on some way it looks like SMF prioritizes a the temp email ban which should prvent users from registering above the full ban which was given before.
Or I'm missing something.

[Black Tiger]

Any clue on how to fix this please?

[Kindred]

there is nothing specific to fix...   you have basically encountered a condition which most people would never see -- where a two bans affect one user...

[Black Tiger]

That's not really a good argument.
I don't see how there's nothing to fix. If somebody decides to ban the yahoo.com or hotmail.com domain they might run into several of these cases.

Birthday messages just should not be send to banned users, no matter which way they are banned imho. Banned=banned.

[Niko_Bellic]

Birthday messages just should not be send to banned users, no matter which way they are banned imho. Banned=banned.

Sorry, but I disagree.
What if you banned a person for a 2 week period, for something, but do want them to be able to return after the ban.
Should these members also "not get the birthday emails" if their birthday falls into the ban time?
If they are only temp banned, due to something, then they are still active members, and deserve to be treated as such.
This includes the Happy Birthday emails.

[Black Tiger]

And how did you think to achieve that Niko_Bellic? There is no single forum software which does that by default.
If you read this thread correctly, this is a software mistake (a bug) and in fact should not happen.

The temp ban trigger (not group) I created myself, and users which use that email domain, can't register, so logically no birthday email should be send. Full ban is also no birthday email by default. So we're talking about a bug here. Which makes me wonder why Kindred finds there would be nothing to fix. Bugs are normally fixed.

Just for argument sake... If a user misbehaved himself so he would earn a ban, I can't see how he's still an active member. Banned users can't do anything, and should not receive any birthday email. This way it's on all forum software around known to me.
Unless maybe they have a special temp banned group which has those capabilities (I don't know of any). Which isn't the case right now in my issue.

[Kindred]

Well, actually I did present a good argument...

First..full ban != temp or post ban

Plain and simple you are wrong... Banned is not just banned, there are different levels of ban and being post banned or temp banned is not the same as a full perm ban.

IMO, the software is working as designed and your impression of it being a bug is merely because you have a unique situation which would not normally occur on a forum.

[Niko_Bellic]

And how did you think to achieve that Niko_Bellic? There is no single forum software which does that by default.
If you read this thread correctly, this is a software mistake (a bug) and in fact should not happen.

Black Tiger, I did not read this wrong.
This is not a software bug, but more like a user error!
Or more precisely, a user misinterpretation of how features work, and what happens, when the user messes up.
As for how I "think to achieve this": Logically, like a human should.
If someone is temp banned, then yes, it keeps them from posting and such, but should have no effect on emails, birthday, or notification emails.
Yes, there are several forums that still send the birthday emails to members that are temp banned. I know this for a fact, because I was temp banned on another forum, using a paid software, and still got my birthday and notification emails. Before you say something, research it!

The temp ban trigger (not group) I created myself, and users which use that email domain, can't register, so logically no birthday email should be send. Full ban is also no birthday email by default. So we're talking about a bug here. Which makes me wonder why Kindred finds there would be nothing to fix. Bugs are normally fixed.

Didn't you say before:

Ah I might have found the cause. This user registered beginning last year.
After I banned him this year by giving him a full ban, I also blocked the email domain he used from registering by a bantrigger and called that trigger "temp email".
At this moment SMF says the user is banned as result of a ban called "temp email".

However, when I click his account and choose "ban this user" it says by default "full ban". Even if I click this now and save it, and have a look at the user account, it still says that it's banned by the temp email trigger.

Kindred answered that, very nicely:

there is nothing specific to fix...   you have basically encountered a condition which most people would never see -- where a two bans affect one user...

And how did you think to achieve that Niko_Bellic? There is no single forum software which does that by default.
Just for argument sake... If a user misbehaved himself so he would earn a ban, I can't see how he's still an active member. Banned users can't do anything, and should not receive any birthday email. This way it's on all forum software around known to me.
Unless maybe they have a special temp banned group which has those capabilities (I don't know of any). Which isn't the case right now in my issue.

Like I stated above, I know from personal experience, that your data is incorrect.

[Steve]

I think we're running into fact vs. opinion here and there is no solution short of having a mod created to do what the OP believes the software should do.

Fact: the software is working as designed (ergo, by definition, this can't be a bug)

Opinion: the software should not perform a certain function under certain conditions

Since it's working as designed, the only other option I see is a mod ... that's what mods are for, to make the core software do things it wasn't specifically designed to do.

And sniping at each other isn't going to change any of this.

[Black Tiger]

@Kindred:

you have a unique situation which would not normally occur on a forum.

It might be unique at this moment. I gave an example which would make it far from unique. It is a bug because it should not happen.
I do appreciate your answer, but from my example you could read that it might not be so unique when people start blocking email domains.
So the only issue is that I don't understand why and where exactly this is working as designed. That I'm the only one discovering this (or having this issue right now) is not a prove that it's not a bug.

@Niko:

Black Tiger, I did not read this wrong.
This is not a software bug, but more like a user error!

So you did read it wrong, no user error is made. You are talking about a temp ban. A temp ban was never issued by me.
Next to that I did research, you should read better because I clearly stated:

Unless maybe they have a special temp banned group which has those capabilities (I don't know of any).

Which makes your comment about my researching obsolute. So you might have encountered some forum software which did. I also worked with paid sofware for 15 years, also know what I'm talking about.
And on that forum software I also could create various bans amongst which normal full bans (which I did now) and domain register blocks (which I did too).

So again, in this case there is no issue about some temp ban because there is no temp ban made.
There is an issue about a user, which has a double full ban. First a full ban. Which should take precedense because that one was given at first. Full ban = no birthday email als you could read from Illori's answer.
After that there was issued a email ban trigger so users could not register with that domain anymore.
Both of those are default ban features, so no user error and no misinterpretation. Investigate yourself please before commenting, no need for sniping at me.

@Steve:
I like your comment, but I still can't understand why the software is working as designed.
Mod's are designed to create special things which are not default. To me it's quite clear the full ban is not working, at least not as designed and explained in Illori's statement.

Let's all keep it to the content of the issue please.
If maybe someone could explain to me what exactly is working as designed I would greatly appreciate it.

We all agree that a full ban should no send out birthday emails, also according to Illori's explanation, correct?
Since emails are send out, it must be the domain trigger which is causing the issue.

This is my thought.
1.) Why doesn't the first given full ban take precedence? So why is this account still used for birthday emails? Full ban (never lift) is no temp ban.
2.) Since when does a user which can't register because of a banned domain needs to receive birthday emails?

Shortly, these are my two arguments why this is not working as designed.
The only thing to do is to explain why email sending is working as designed in this case. I know not everybody has this situation. But as stated, when people start to block email domains (like hotmail), and they already have banned hotmail members, the same situation will appear and then it's not unique anymore.

Please take in mind I'm just pointing to this to help improve SMF, not to attack it on it's failures because that would make no sense. If this won't be fixed, oke by me, but then explain why it's working as designed.

[Black Tiger]

P.s. I agree if you think it's working as designed because the "email domain ban trigger" is not > 10, but the user should not be in there is my argument, because I banned him with a full ban first, which should make him a > 10 user.
The ban trigger should not move him to another userlevel afterwards, correct?

[Kindred]

it is working as designed because there is no normal circumstance in which a user should be affected by a temp ban, a post ban and/or a perm ban...

So, the situation should not arise...

If a user is on a temp ban or a post ban, then that user SHOULD receive the birthday notification. Yup... That is correct as well.

If you have banned by domain, why don't you delete those accounts which previously used that domain?
If you are banning by domain in an attempt to stop spammers, then you are going about it the wrong way from the very start. At this point, the bane system should not be used for spammers - there are much better ways to stop spammers BEFORE they register than to implement a ban (which is easily bypassed in seconds by the spam bots as they switch to a new domain, new IP and new account)

[Black Tiger]

Thank you for trying to explain, that's very nice of you.

If a user is on a temp ban or a post ban, then that user SHOULD receive the birthday notification. Yup... That is correct as well.

So it's always like that? There is no choice for the admin to decide about the birthday emails? I understand that is working as designed.

If you have banned by domain, why don't you delete those accounts which previously used that domain?

Because in case of a lot of users, this can be a lot of work. Just banning the domain would be easier. However I will go and check them to delete them now. I did not expect that kind of banned users to also get birthday messages if the "never lift" option was activated.

By the way... The domain ban is not to stop spammers. On our forums we don't want users with those one-day-registration-domain emails. So we block all those email domains, and if we encounter new ones, we add them to that bantrigger. So it's not used to stop spammers.
We stop spammers before registration by other means, like questions and other stuff, like you say.

I don't agree about sending mails to "never lift" banned users, but since it's implemented that way, it's indeed working as designed.
Thank you for clarifying.

[Niko_Bellic]

Why in the world, if it's a temp ban, would any sane admin want to disable emails, birthday and/or notifications, from that member?
The whole meaning of temp ban, means the member is still an active member, who will be able to post again, when the ban runs out.

To stop them from getting emails, is plain stupid, in my opinion.

Also, just because you worked for one paid forum that does not do this, does not mean all other forums behave like you want them to.
So yes, I say, do your research. I personally, have worked with over 7 paid and free forums programs, and the ones that I had banned people on, temp ones still got all their emails.

[Black Tiger]

Why in the world, if it's a temp ban,

READ!!!! I gave him a full ban!

For the rest I don't even answer anymore to halfwits who are calling people in sane and stupid. Have good life!

[Niko_Bellic]

Halfwit?
Look in the mirror, man. You are the one that said:

The temp ban trigger (not group) I created myself, and users which use that email domain, can't register, so logically no birthday email should be send. Full ban is also no birthday email by default. So we're talking about a bug here. Which makes me wonder why Kindred finds there would be nothing to fix. Bugs are normally fixed.

Just for argument sake... If a user misbehaved himself so he would earn a ban, I can't see how he's still an active member. Banned users can't do anything, and should not receive any birthday email. This way it's on all forum software around known to me.

As for the email blocking, I also agree that is a good idea. However, you are going about it the wrong way.
Using the ban system, is actually heavy on server resources, as has been pointed out several times on the forum here.

There is a mod, that is made to block these emails. Have you tried that?

[Kindred]

Ok guys... Quit the name calling...

[Black Tiger]

Oke let's go further on a decent manner then. I'll try a last time.

You are the one that said:

That is correct, but you are the one that is continuesly missing that I also said various times that I firstly gave this user a full ban.

The temp ban trigger was set afterwards and was thus not the primary ban given. Which I also stated.
The whole time I only wanted to know why somebody having a full ban could get also set to a temp ban and this way get a birthday email. Which was also clearly stated in the later post in question 1 and 2.

As Kindred said I encountered a situation which was unique. In fact there was no unique situation, this situation could not even occur at all.

Because in the mean time I kept wondering, start spitting out logs, talking to others and discovered how things could go wrong.
Everything is indeed working as designed. I did it correct. User was given a full ban as I already said. And he did not get a birthday email last year, which is working as designed.
Now this is what happened. After the statements here I went investigating the logs. This showed I did the correct thing and gave a full ban. A couple of months ago my co-admin went cleaning up banned users, and he put that user also in that temp ban trigger, not being able to register.
So this way the user was given a full ban by me, but showing up as having a temp ban and suddenly was able to get birthday emails when I checked this week.

I don't need the mod to not send birthday emails, because we almost never give temp bans.

Also keep in mind that not everybody is giving out bans for the same reasons.
We only give out bans at times that most other forums are already have given a full ban. So if we even decide to give a temp ban instead of a full ban, the user has misbehaved in such manner, he should really get nothing anymore and really realise he is being punished and might call himself lucky to get even get a temp ban.
He can't visit the forum or make any posts for that time so is not an active user for that period. So that's a sane though to disable everything except maybe for admin emails. We will keep in mind birthday messages are send to temp banned users. But as said, normally if a ban is issued, we mostly don't do temp bans.

Now I do understand that this situation could be otherwise on bigger forums. We might also do things otherwise in that case. But we have a small forum. Mostly if even a user is banned it's a commercial spammer managing to get past the security measures once or twice a year. Most banned users were from when our forum was very busy.

Using the ban system, is actually heavy on server resources

Our server does not really have any issues with that. Reason for it is, (as I also stated before) that the ban system is only used to prevent the one day registration email domains, not spammers.
For spammer we use anti spamming systems and security questions.
If you know of a better way to prevent users registrating with one day email domains, I would be interested. If there is a mod which would do that, and how that's different from the prevent registration temp ban I made.
Most full banned users were already deleted so hardly any server resources are used for our banning system.

[Niko_Bellic]

The mod I was meaning, is for blocking those temporary email providers.
It lets you block them, without using the ban system.

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1493

I hope this works for you, as a friend has it on their site, and says it rules!

[Steve]

Wow! Your last post made even me understand what happened and that's saying something.

As Kindred said I encountered a situation which was unique. In fact there was no unique situation, this situation could not even occur at all.

I'm not sure I understand this statement though. Did you mean 'should not' instead of 'could not'?

So if we even decide to give a temp ban instead of a full ban, the user has misbehaved in such manner, he should really get nothing anymore and really realise he is being punished and might call himself lucky to get even get a temp ban.

Wouldn't this be a matter of opinion though? I've never really thought about it but offhand I'd lean towards the banned user not receiving anything during his/her banned period and if that happens to be a time frame covering their birthday, oh well. But that's just my opinion. The software developers may think otherwise.

At any rate, thanks for the further explanation.

[Black Tiger]

@Niko:
Thank you for pointing to the mod, but it does not differ that much from the banning system. Giving a list of email domains.
The mod makes it a bit nicer.  The registering user get to see a message which is more user friendly, and you can do it the other way around, only specify which domains should be accepted. The list of domains however is next to eachother which makes checking if some domain is already added a bit less clear then the list I've got in the bantrigger.
Next to that I also can block subdomains in the banning system like *@*.domain.com and I'm not sure if the mod can do such things too. However I did not read the support thread yet to check this.

I'll mostly try to keep the forums running with as little mods as possible until after we upgraded to 2.1.x, but I will surely keep this mod in mind! Thank you for poiting to it.

@Steve:

Did you mean 'should not' instead of 'could not'?

Sorry, English is not my native language, should indeed be "should not" I guess.
The thing I was describing, a user having a full and temp ban at the same time, could not occur, that's why I wrote the "could not". I'm not sure what's best in this situation, so if you say it should be "should not" I won't argue about it.

Wouldn't this be a matter of opinion though?

Yes I surely agree. That is a matter of opinion, which also (in our case) depends on when you issue a ban or for which reasons. Some do it quicker, others wait a very long time.
Reading the arguments, I do agree that there are also situations in which sending a birthday on a temp ban is good.
On a busy forum, I might also even lean to giving a temp ban faster, but in that case with the user keeping his user rights including the birthday email.
You're welcome about the explanation.

[Steve]

For not being your native language, you speak it very well. I admire people who can do that.

[Black Tiger]

Thank you for the compliment Steve. I must also say it's an obligated language at schools in our country.

[Niko_Bellic]

@Black Tiger

I do apologize for my attitude before, and hope you understand, it was due to the temp ban getting emails or not.


As for the mod, I do think you can do wildcards, but I'm not certain if they are really needed. After all, if you block any emails from domain.com it should in effect, block any from whatever.domain.com also. Even using your way, it should do that, without needing the *@*.domain.com

[Black Tiger]

@Niko: Apology accepted. I apologize too for me calling you a name.

About the domain blocking system I thought exactly the same way you did.
Normally a wildcard on a domain is like *@domain.com but I discovered that this does only @domain.com and not for example *@123.domain.com, looks like the filter only looks like what's coming directly after the @ and if that's something else then domain.com it lets the mail pass by.
This happened especially on *@cjb.net domains. However, I must be honest to tell that I'm not sure anymore if this was also on SMF or only on my previous software.
Next to that I ban some country's like *@*.lv.

Any clue on the difference between the mod and the banning system this way, except for the nice message displayed to the users?

P.s. the banlist also gives a reason for banning, in which I have a notice displayed that the email address is not accepted and they should use another one.

[Niko_Bellic]

@Niko: Apology accepted. I apologize too for me calling you a name.

Any clue on the difference between the mod and the banning system this way, except for the nice message displayed to the users?

P.s. the banlist also gives a reason for banning, in which I have a notice displayed that the email address is not accepted and they should use another one.

No clue, as of now.... But I would think the mod would prevent right away on registering, and force the person to change it.
I have not used the ban system really, so no idea how it does it.

I also, would think the mod would give a nice little message.

[Black Tiger]

I guess the banning system is also preventing right away on registering with the custom message I made.
Thank you for your comment on it. I will keep this mod in mind, if it still will work after uprading to 2.1 there's a good chance I'm going to install it to see how it works.