catching spammers

[hellios]

say i ban someone from my message board and this person keeps coming back. i know i can check ip. but can i:

- ip ban?
- check if a person that is on one ip has been on another?

for the first question, is it effective?

for the second question, does it only show the ip a user has most recently used, or does it keep track of a user's multiple ips? what about multiple accounts? is there a way to show all the accounts that have been on a certain ip?

[MRGTB]

There are always well known ways around IP bans if a person wants to be persistent by using certain software. Also, if a person has a dial-up connection (uncommon these days). An IP ban would be useless as his IP changes every-time he connects to the net.

IP bans are OK for the average person who's not that bothered about coming back to your site once banned. But not for the hardcore person who will just go and use software to get around it. There is No fool proof way to stop persistent spammers, they will just use FREE email addresses to re-register, and software to change the IP your board see's from them. And the problem your faced with is you cannot really ban a full range of IP's if you want to get more members, because you might be blocking a certain ISP in full, or even worse most of a countries population.

Best way I'd say to deal with these types is to ignore their cries for attention, because that's what keeps them coming back if they get it from you. Just delete their posts and ignore them. They will get bored and wonder off to spam another board that gives them attention.

[hellios]

okay, i've never run a board before but i'm thinking about trying it. thanks for the advice / answering the first question.

i'm still hoping someone can answer the second question though, since i'm curious about how much knowledge i am going to have about who people are. even if i cannot get rid of someone, i would like to know if there are people who may be trying to pass themselves off as other people. so can you look up a person's full ip history on your message board, or can you only look up the last used ip? how about posts? do posts retain the ip under which they were posted, regardless of a user's current ip?

[beishe8]

so can you look up a person's full ip history on your message board,

Yes,full IP history from the posts.

how about posts? do posts retain the ip under which they were posted, regardless of a user's current ip?

Yes,they retain the IP addresses.

In the case of experienced spammers those IPs are useless as explained above by MRGTB.