Creating a new IP ban on an existing or expired IP ban

[demianalonso]

Hello everyone,
  we have upgraded the forum from version 1.X to the latest 2.0.11 and we found some difference in the behavior of the ban lists that I would like to ask.
Currently if there is an expired ban on a specific IP, you cannot add another ban (it gives you the "This ban trigger (NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN) already exists in AAAAA."). Why isn't it allowed to add another ban if there are currently no active bans on that IP? And more general, why couldn't you just add two bans on the same IP?
  Apparently this behavior has change from the previous version as it was possible to load many bans on the same IP.

  Is this really the expected behavior or is it a bug (could provide a patch if it is)?

  I know that you can easily remove the expired ban as it is no longer used, but we would like to keep those ban to have the history as there aren't many of them (so it shouldn't impact in the performance of the forum).

Thanks in advance for any advise!

[Kindred]

no... you can not add a ban on the same IP - (quite honestly, you really should not be banning IPs using the SMF ban system anyway)
it's intentional behavior, not a bug.

If you want to reactivate a ban, then edit the old ban.

[demianalonso]

I have read many topics advising against using the SMF ban system, which makes me wonder if whether it should be removed (since it is really not the correct way of making a ban) or rethought to write the bans in a the .htaccess.

I was hopping that since we don't have many bans we could get away with it, but maybe we should abandon it or re thinking our ban workflow.

Either way, thanks for the quick reply!

[Kindred]

well,

1- the ban system works just fine...   except when people over-use it.
   a- the ban system should pretty much never be used for spammers. Delete their accounts completely and work on preventing them from coming in in the first place.
2- for normal user bans, the ban system is great and does exactly what it is supposed to do.
3- for IP bans, yes - you should use htaccess...   however
    a- you should avoid IP bans in all but the most dire cases - becuse you ARE going to affect others which you don't intend to affect
    b- other than special cases where it is the only way (like prettyurls), the system should never write to the htaccess file, IMO.

[demianalonso]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Kindred.

After talking to the users a bit more, I found out what was the use they gave it. The problem in our forum is that some banned users might create a new account just to keep bothering. That is why the temporary ban we use tends to be username+IP, to prevent this behavior. We are aware that banning an IP might affect others, but as it is a temporary ban we can live with it.
That is also why we want to preserve the old bans, as it helps track bad user behavior.

Do you think there is another way of preventing users from create another account to keep posting using the ban system?

Any idea is welcome, thanks!

[Kindred]

not really...   the problem with jerks is that they are jerks....    and they will, quite often, find a way around anything you do in order to continue to be jerks.

For example, if I was a jerk, and I got banned from a site that I wanted to harass, I could get in with a new account, even if you banned my IP.
new account (e.g. new username)
free email account like gmail, hotmal, yahoo, etc
proxy server to rotate my IP address

done...   and the ban is useless.

[demianalonso]

I do agree that now a day that anonymous proxies are so at hand, it is less efficient this way. It used to work us well this way, since it used to demotivate the jerks enough to make them wait, calm down, and continue with their life for a bit.


Anyway, thanks for your opinions nonetheless