How do Admins manage banned users who reregister again & again ...

[wanders]

if they can't live w/o the forums, that's a good sign that they need to learn how to.

ban once and that should be that. We actually have a big problem with IP bans not even working so we're thinking about charging a registration fee to get rid of the riff-raff.

[ubbuser]

Yes the bottomline technique that works usually is the fact that all these crackheads even if they use diff. IP's or email addresses show about the same personality type or same style of replying back.

Sooner or later you figure out it is the same person and if he misbehaves again then re-ban him.

[Mark Hewitt]

Originally posted by DarkReaper


NetBIOS.

For it to work it needs to run everytime someone logs into the forum.

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by ubbuser
One interesting thing is the fricking AOL users. It seems that AOL from Canada or USA point to Virginia only if we do a traceroute to validate location (traceroute usually gives us a fair idea if the person is really located where he/she is saying).

Is there any way to traceroute AOL users properly?

You are tracing them properly... AOL doesn't assign IP's until the user leaves their home network which is in Virginia. Welcome to the world of proxy caching firewalls.

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by DarkReaper


NetBIOS.

How are you going to get at it? they don't traverse further than their local subnets.

[DarkReaper]

Originally posted by Mark Hewitt
But how can you detect someones MAC address??

NetBIOS.

[ubbuser]

One interesting thing is the fricking AOL users. It seems that AOL from Canada or USA point to Virginia only if we do a traceroute to validate location (traceroute usually gives us a fair idea if the person is really located where he/she is saying).

Is there any way to traceroute AOL users properly?

[Mark Hewitt]

But how can you detect someones MAC address??

[DarkReaper]

Someone posted this idea a while back:

Ban their Modem's MAC address. Whammo..they have to buy a new network card/modem to get back on. Even though a firewall would prevent this, its still an EXCELLENT solution if they don't have a firewall. I think it should be implemented, as well as the cookie issue. You ban them enough ways at once and they'll have too much of a problem getting unbanned, and will (hopefully) just give up.

[ubbuser]

Well what we've done is that we give access to posting images to users with a certain # of posts only. That filters out the morons from the members who want to have fun usually.

I wonder how big onlinecommunities like Yahoo, MSN handle such losers? Their grps are full of spams, etc.

[Mark Hewitt]

It's not just a matter of ignoring. As any large board owner will tell you.

I've got one person (I know his home address and I've told the police but nothing) who was and is consistently harrasing a female moderator on my board and posts porn pictures to our members pretending to work for our site

[ubbuser]

I don't know guys, it's just that some of these users are total crackheads, and I have their email addresses (real ones for some) I could really mess up their accounts by the usual stuff but it's best to ignore these pests and move on.

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by Mark Hewitt


Oh yes! I love that idea!! They are banned but they don't know it. Maybe you can send them the confirm email but when they click to activate their account you can just display the

"There has been a slight problem with the database" screen, so they think the forum is broken and go away!

This is exactly what I suggested to the vB team 6+ months ago, calling it the "evil cookie".

Also another thing about proxies. They often will pass back an env. variable called x_forward_for (spelling?). You can have vB check that variable. If it amounts to an IP you already banned then vB should automatically reject the registration.

[Mark Hewitt]

Originally posted by JWB
when a banned user logged on it gave them a "nono" cookie then no matter what it would not let them do anything.. Not only that make it act like it's letting them register but once they submit never email them the confirm and stuff.. Real agrivating

Oh yes! I love that idea!! They are banned but they don't know it. Maybe you can send them the confirm email but when they click to activate their account you can just display the

"There has been a slight problem with the database" screen, so they think the forum is broken and go away!

[Milliardo Peace]

Originally posted by Redmak
Don't think that's possible since they pick a new name, email address and can get a new ip.

So how do you know it's the same user?

Just like in real life, people on a board have certain personalities. You realize that as you go along as an admin or mod--you know it's this person, and not another one. He can change his name, go to another comp, have another e-mail, but his style of replying is still unique. You can take a look at this board and see how each person who replies has his way and even temperement in replying.