Quick removal of bans and users

[ghulst]

I run a forum with a couple of moderators. I have just found that one of them has put spammers on the ban list, which blocked their account, but also their IP number and all the *@domainname.com email addresses it can find. I have just found that that also banned quite a few current users, so I need to solve this puzzle.

I have roughly 180 lines on my ban list. Is there a possibility to scrap all of the IP bans and email domain bans at once? Right now it seems that I need to enter every single ban list line, remove the IP and email domain ban individually. That's a bit of a chore. Any suggestions?

[GL700Wing]

@ghulst If you go to Administration Center >> Ban List you should be able to select/remove groups of bans ...

[Kindred]

If you mean: How can you EDIT the individual bans, then you will have to do each one individually.

However, in this case, you're doing it wrong (IMO)

banning the account is useless. Most spammers are one login and done. they do another next time.

1- stop the spammers from even creating an account.
https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Spam_-_my_forum_is_flooded_with_spam,_what_can_I_do

2- Delete spammer accounts, don't ban them.

3- if you have persistent spammers, then blocking the account only does nothing. Also using the ban system is NOT the right way to deal with spammers. Block them by user agent (for bots) and IP using .htaccess.

[ghulst]

I know... But one of my moderators apparently didn't.
Which means I want to get rid of the ban list.

I do have a number of anti-spam things running, but sometimes some slip through. And my very eager moderator has just decided to ban every single one of them. And possibly people who have genuinely been trying to create an account. 

[ghulst]

In the member profile, we ask what kind of bike you have. Is there a way in which I can search for that? I see that most bots seem to answer that with either gibberish or mountainbike. Which is really easy to remove them by.

[shawnb61]

The UI lets you do whole pages at a time.  And you can focus on emails or IPs if desired, by choosing the appropriate tab.  Shouldn't take long to work thru 180.  This, of course, will be much easier & quicker on a desktop.

But there's no "delete all" function. 

[GL700Wing]

In the member profile, we ask what kind of bike you have. Is there a way in which I can search for that? I see that most bots seem to answer that with either gibberish or mountainbike. Which is really easy to remove them by.

Maybe try and stop bots/spammers from registering in the first place by adding an image to the registration verification process: Image for Anti-Spam Verification Questions.

Creating an image using a Scrabble type font gives the option for asking verification questions about both letters and tile values ...

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